


The Joyous One

by Philosophizes



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Characters as Gods, Fake-period-appropriate homophobia/sexism/ideas about gender and sexuality, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Like vaguely 1800s fantasy AU, Multi, Other, Sicily - Freeform, Trans Character, Vatican City - Freeform, Watch as I shamelessly plunder real life history for the setting of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4433990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ludwig Beilschmidt left home to “go find himself,” and ended up murdered by a cult that insisted the proper, <i>historical</i> way to worship is human sacrifice. </p><p>Their surprisingly friendly god is having none of this blasphemous nonsense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I cannot _believe_ these people,” someone sighed. “Human _sacrifice. Honestly._ Where do they get these _ideas?_ ”

“I’m dead,” he said.

“Yeah,” whoever-it-was replied. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to tell them not to but they wouldn’t listen. I got the temple police to come out this time, though, so they’ve been arrested for heresy and blasphemy and murder. I’d already tried smiting them but they ignored me, so.”

“I’m _dead,_ ” he repeated, and sat up this time. The little marsh island where the cultists had set up their ritual altar was deserted, now, and the temple police had put up _‘do not enter’_ signs. There was one single grey-clad officer left behind to enforce them.

A young man, rather scrawny really, with brown hair that could use a good combing after being out in this sea wind and warm brown eyes, was sitting next to him. Reflexively, he reached out and fixed the man’s hair.

“Oh!” he exclaimed happily. “Thank you! That _always_ happens and I mean I could make it _not_ happen but that would mean I wouldn’t get to feel the sea breeze, and I really _like_ the sea breeze it’s all cool and salty, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The sea breeze. Isn’t it nice?”

“I suppose,” he said doubtfully. He hadn’t really been paying attention to it, both in the city and on this island. In the city, he was too busy trying not to get lost and on the island he had been getting murdered, but now he felt vaguely ashamed that he _hadn’t._ If he’d known someone was going to ask him, he would have taken the time to form an opinion.

“So what’s your name?” the man asked.

“Oh- I’m. I’m Ludwig Beilschmidt. From Bärchen.”

“Oh _wow,_ ” the man said, eyes going wide. “You’re _really_ not from around here. I mean, I _figured_ you weren’t because you’re all blonde and I mean there _are_ blonde people from here but they almost never have blue eyes, too, they’ve got brown ones or greeny ones, did you know you’re very pretty?”

“ _Wh-_ thank you?”

“You’re welcome but did you _know?_ ”

“Know what?”

“That you’re _very pretty?_ ” the man said, sounding sort of fondly exasperated. “It’s okay to not really be keeping up, you just died, and that sounds really distracting, but has anyone ever told you you’re pretty?”

“Only my _mother-_ ”

“ _Ooooooh,_ that’s a _shame,_ I’m _sorry._ ”

“That’s- look, why do _you_ care?” Ludwig asked. “I just _died._ I appreciate you calling the police, uh-”

What was the proper address for a Felician priest? It was something special, especially with the ones who dealt with the really spiritual-mystical sorts of things, the newly-dead and ghosts and faith healing.

“-sir,” he had to settle on. “But I should be- moving on, or something, soon. So you’ve done your job.”

“What?” the man asked. “Why would I be leaving?”

“Well, I’m dead, and I’m sure you managed to do whatever you needed to prevent me from hanging around as a vengeful ghost while I was… unconscious; so thank you for taking care of my soul, but I think I’m just going to sit here and wait to be collected.”

 _“Oh,”_ the man said. “ _Oooooooooh._ No, silly- **_I’m_** _Felixian._ ”

What? _What!_

“Well, Feliciano, down here on the coast, because of language influences, but they _used_ to call me Felixian down here like they still do up in the mountains, but I’ve mostly gotten used to it now, I guess, I’m the same person either way and they use the same epithets, I’m _‘The Joyous One’_ and _‘The Fortunate’_ and _‘The Golden-Eyed’_ no matter where anyone’s talking about me or in what language, though I think my eyes are more amber-y than gold-y, but that’s poets for you. I like poets! I’ve had some very nice ones, ethnically and liturgically speaking. Have you ever read any Zenna?”

_“No?”_

“Well she’s very good. Anyway, I’ve got a lot of stuff I do but I kind of ended up a psychopomp and ruler of the dead, too, and you were illegally sacrificed to me and those cultists had already, you know, _invoked_ me, so I’m here. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it’s kind of a little bit my fault probably, since I couldn’t make them stop, they’ve been reading really old stuff talking about the couple of times I _did_ have human sacrifice, but that was always the generals and kings of chiefs of people my people were, well, _at war_ with. _That’s_ acceptable human sacrifice. This wasn’t, even if your people are one of Tirovisa’s rivals, so- oh, this is _ridiculous._ ”

Feliciano shook his head, messing his hair up again.

“What I’m trying to tell you is you don’t _have_ to be dead.”

“I _don’t?_ ”

“Nope! I can make you a new body, it’ll just take a little bit, and then you can go back to what you were doing. Um. What _were_ you doing here?”

“I’ve been traveling to try to find myself,” Ludwig informed the god. “But I think I’d like to go home now.”

“We can do that,” Feliciano agreed amicably, and started to take up handfuls of clay mud. “So did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find yourself!”

“Oh,” Ludwig said. “No, I- I don’t think I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapters? Reasonable wordcounts? Fast update speeds?
> 
> It's a miracle.


	2. Chapter 2

They talked about where Ludwig had been as Feliciano put his new body together.

“I left Bärchen a couple of years ago,” he told the god. “I wandered around Tütschen for a while, and then started coming east, and crossed the border of the Tirovisan Empire into Galia, then through Galia to Isbana, and through Isbana to Ardingna and Truscia, then Neaellása.”

“Oh, that’s right next door!”

“I was going to come through Veineità to go to Ellása and Árdéll, and then maybe even further, but...”

“So why were you looking for yourself?” Feliciano asked. “You know what, just a second, there’s still a temple officer here and resurrections are _awkward_ when there are witnesses, and there _are_ murder charges, it would be kind of hard to prosecute them if they can’t prove you weren’t actually dead, we should probably move.”

Feliciano helped him stand up and they walked over the marsh bay to the shore, the god still fiddling with his heavy lump of clay.

“So why were you looking for yourself?” he asked again, once they’d gotten settled on the sand. “I guess it’s kind of a personal question, so you don’t _have_ to tell me.”

“I just I wasn’t- I _couldn’t_ be right, in Bärchen,” Ludwig said. “I didn’t- I _don’t_ fit. I still won’t be- _right,_ when I go back. But at least it will be home. As much of a home as I have. At least my brother will be there.”

“You have a brother?”

“Gilbert,” Ludwig said. “He doesn’t really fit, either. He’s got this medical condition, ocular albinism. His eyes are red and he’s not very good with sunny days, but platinum blonde runs in our family, so he looks like he has full albinism. The doctors say he’s lucky he doesn’t have it worse, but- we’re, my family is polite society. That’s why there was money for me to go traveling. Gilbert- he’s a social liability, to the family. Our parents love him, but the public world is important, too. They barely ever let him outside.”

“That’s really sad,” Feliciano told him. “Here, okay, I’m done- just step over here-”

Having a body again felt kind of strange, and Ludwig was surprised that it did. He hoped he got used to it again.

Right now it just- _felt wrong._

“Am I- did this work right?”

“Yep!” Feliciano assured him. “You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from your first one, even under a microscope!”

Then this was just another out-of-place thing for him to learn to live with.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome! I think you’re going to need another little miracle, though, Ludwig, because all your stuff is in the city and if you go to try to get it they’ll find you.”

Ludwig’s traveling pack appeared at his feet. He looked through it and found that it held everything he’d brought with him, and the saddlebags secured across the top of the traveling pack held provisions for the day, his wallet tucked in on top of lunch.

“You didn’t have to get me food, too,” Ludwig told the god.

“Well it’s for both of us!”

“Did… you want to have a picnic?” he asked, confused. He supposed since the god _had_ gotten him a new body, and brought him back to life, and miracled his things out of the city, that he owed _something_ in return. An offering at a little local temple in the next town he came to probably wouldn’t cut it.

“I wouldn’t _mind_ having a picnic,” Feliciano said. “I like picnics! But I meant that I’m coming with you.”

That was- well that was pretty baffling, honestly. This was a _god,_ surely he had better things to do than come with him all the way back to Bärchen?

“Don’t you have more important things to deal with?”

_“Ludwig,”_ Feliciano said in that fondly exasperated tone again. “I’m a god. I’m _big._ Like, _really big. Incomprehensibly **huge.** _ I can escort you back to Bärchen and kinda- fudge the distances, a little, so you get home a lot sooner, _and_ still handle the things here and everywhere else I need to do.”

That made sense, at least.

“But _why?_ ” he asked. “Why _me?_ ”

“Because I think you’re nice,” Feliciano told him. “And you haven’t found yourself yet, and I can probably help. I started out as the tribal god of the original people who lived here, did you know that? I brought them good catches and helped them get the salt out of the seawater in the winter, and then in the summer when they went back to the mountains- because _honestly,_ it’s _nasty_ here in the summer, I’m glad they decided to be migratory- I made sure they found good foraging and mined well. I was their protector and I brought them natural bounty, and wealth when they traded with others, and the whole mining thing turned into an underworld thing which turned into a dead thing so then I protected the dead too, and of course having stuff made people happy, so I was luck and joy and fortune too. When the Tirovisans came and conquered my people the Tirovisans spread me all over the place, and I got to be the god of trade and business too; and then they went all kind of mystical and I ended up being god of journeys and quests, because trading is kind of quest, and dying is a sort of journey and there’s _figurative_ death that’s change and transformation and that’s stuff that’s quest-y too. So I can probably help you find yourself. If. Um. You want me around.”

It was probably rude to tell a god you didn’t want their help, and foolish besides.

Anyway, Ludwig… Feliciano was also a pretty nice person. And he wouldn’t mind some human- well, divine, but _human_ \- company.

“Of course I want you around, Feliciano.”


	3. Chapter 3

Neaellása was a hard place to pronounce, but it was very pretty, if harsh. It had a lot of steep, stony hills and rock outcroppings, and most of it was only good for goats and scrubby trees. The main traveler’s road wound through the hills, going from one well-spring to another. Usually, they had inns attached, and Ludwig and Feliciano stayed at them for the night in preference to camping out.

Tonight, they hadn’t quite been able to reach one.

“That’s okay,” Feliciano said. “The weather is going to be nice tonight anyway, and we’ll get to the city by tomorrow. Meanwhile we can see the stars!”

The night sky from the Neaellása countryside was very impressive. Feliciano pointed out the Sea Star, and the Lion and the Eagle.

“They used to be one constellation,” he told Ludwig. “A really, really long time ago. It looked like the Lion had wings, and that it was trying to run up the Mountain of the Sky to catch the Sea Star. That’s why the flag of my people is the lion with wings, because they went up the mountains every year, and I was there waiting for them.”

His voice got a little sad.

“They don’t tell that story anymore,” Feliciano said. “And they renamed the Mountain of the Sky the Pearls, so it wouldn’t even make any sense if they did.”

Privately, Ludwig thought the whitish, dusty, sparkling band of stars that swept south to north over the night sky looked a lot more like a necklace of diamonds and pearls than a mountainside, but he wasn’t going to be rude to a god.

The city of Neaellása was on the sea, like the city of Veineità, but it was very different from its sister on the other side of the hook of the wide peninsula out into the ocean. Where Veineità was on the beaches and the lowland salt marshes, Neaellása was built on the craggy cliffs, roads up from the natural port of its protected bay snaking through the rock towers and outcroppings. Veineità was built mostly in wood and tile, but here the buildings were stone and brick.

“I’ve always wondered,” Ludwig said as they started wandering the streets, looking for a good inn and some horses to buy for the long ride up the coast. “Why the Ellássana founded Neaellása _here,_ on the western side of the peninsula, instead of in the east, on their side.”

Feliciano smiled brightly at him, and there was glitter in his honey-amber eyes that made Ludwig kind of see why cultists could think his ceremonies had regularly involved human sacrifice, once.

“Because _I_ was already there, silly! They _tried,_ and so did the Tirovisans when _they_ came west, but the eastern coast is _mine._ ”

Neaellása was a port city, so it made sense that there would be a lot of inns, but Ludwig had to stop and ask for directions from a guard to get them going in the right direction. No one had done a bit of urban planning for this city.

“I suppose it makes sense,” Ludwig remarked, when they got lost _again._ It was getting dark. “If invading soldiers are getting lost, they’re easier to get rid of. But they could put up _signs._ ”

They weren’t in a visitors or touristy area of the city, any longer. It was residential, respectably middle-class, and Ludwig was not comfortable with this. He clearly didn’t belong- Feliciano could probably fake being a city native, but _he_ looked far too Tütsch for that.

“Oh- oh _Ludwig,_ ” Feliciano said, suddenly stopping. They’d just turned a corner, to find a side street- more like an alley, really, and a restaurant’s outdoor seating area was taking up most of it, warmly illuminated by expensive electric lamps for the rich nighttime diners. “We have to stop here.”

“This looks expensive,” Ludwig told him, frowning a little. Maybe the other man _was_ a god, and could just get more money, but if that was true why hadn’t he said something? Besides, fiscal responsibility was an important trait to cultivate. “If we’re going to have money for-”

“We _have_ to,” the god insisted, tugging him by his hand to the tables. “We have to be polite.”

He sat them down at a table that already had a man and a woman, clearly a married couple, at it. This seemed very rude- this wasn’t the sort of restaurant where you did that. That was traveler’s inns, or dockside or other workers’ dining houses. Edge-of-nobility bourgeoisie, like this couple, didn’t do this sort of thing.

The man shot Feliciano a poisonous glare as soon as he sat down.

“The _fuck_ are you doing in my city, Felixian!” he demanded.

“Ludwig,” Feliciano said, ignoring him. “This is Lovino and Vespasiana. They’re _aliegigna,_ so you’ll have to excuse their manners.”

The woman stared down her nose at the god, coolly offended. For a middle-class, monied society woman, she had the noble disdain down perfectly. Some of Ludwig’s mother’s friends were like that. They’d always made him feel very inferior, and he had the strong, sudden impulse to go have a bath and get his clothes ironed.

“I will not be insulted in my own home,” she told Feliciano icily. “Especially by a _ksenos_.”

Feliciano said something brightly to her in some language that wasn’t Tirovisan, or Ellássana. The hard set to his eyes told Ludwig that however sweet it sounded, he was further insulting her.

Lovino glared at him a second time, and then looked at Ludwig.

“You- Tütsch. What the hell are you doing with the Veineitàni god? Are you one of the _teireiseos-_ ”

“The what?” Ludwig asked at the same time that Feliciano went: _“Shhhhhhh!”_ at the man, quite fiercely.

“What, so he is?” Lovino demanded of Feliciano, and that was- wait a moment. He’d said _Felixian,_ earlier. This man _knew_ who Feliciano was.

Neaellása- a married couple, knowing Feliciano.

“Oh, _gods,_ ” Ludwig said.

“If he is,” the Lord of Neaellása told Feliciano. “Then he’s a fucking idiot and you should throw him back! It took him _that_ long? Why the hell do you keep taking in foreigners, Felixian!”

“Because they _need_ me,” Feliciano insisted. “And he’s _not_ one of my _teireiseos,_ **_Lavinas-_ ** I resurrected him.”

“You did _what!_ ”

“I’m the god of death! I’m _allowed,_ ” Feliciano told him. “And he wasn’t _supposed_ to die, anyway. Those badly-researched reconstructionist cultists killed him because they thought I’d _like_ that.”

“ _I_ could wish for badly-researched reconstructionists,” Vespasiana said. “We have _well_ -researched reconstructionists. They are-”

She sniffed, and frowned severely. Ludwig recognized the expression as that of A Lady who refused to sully her lips with invective. The opinion came across just as strongly without resorting to cursing.

Feliciano made a noise of sympathy.

“They found the original Mysteries, didn’t they?” he asked.

“If that _fucker_ Sarogasiad wasn’t _dead,_ I’d-” Lovino spat, cut off by his wife placing a hand on his arm.

“They did,” she told Felixian. “In Eléthyiusia.”

“Oh,” Feliciano said. “I am _so_ sorry, Vespasiana- did they at least spare your tombs?”

_Tombs?_ Why would gods have _tombs?_

“They didn’t find _those,_ ” Lovino said, sounding vindictively proud. _“Assholes._ I’m going to set Erakléos on them, I _swear-_ ”

“ _I’ll_ be the one to talk to Erakléos, dear,” Vespasiana interrupted him. “He likes me better than you.”

Her husband scowled, and grumbled, but seemed to agree.

This seemed to be the end of the conversation. Feliciano bid them both goodbye, and dragged Ludwig back to the street, and they suddenly found all the inns they’d been promised by the guard.

_“Lovino,”_ Feliciano sighed under his breath, as the inns came into view now that the Lord and Lady of the city weren’t blocking them from getting anyway until they came and said hello. “Come on, Ludwig.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got some old-timely homophobic slurs here in this chapter

They actually got a boat from Neaellása, to go up the coast to Tirovisa, the capital of the empire.

“Why didn’t we get a boat to go to Parcenona?” he asked Feliciano, once they were under way. Parcenona was the biggest port city in Ibana, one of the little states that made up the Tirovisan Empire. “Or Marselia?”

“Because we’d have to go by _Ardigna,_ ” Feliciano told him. “It’s faster to get to Tirovisa on a boat, and I mean it’s a _boat,_ it’s on the ocean, this is sort of my thing. But we have to stop in Tirovisa to see Cristiforus anyway, because we can’t just _ignore_ him. If _he_ came to Veineità, he’d have to see me, too. But we _can’t_ see-”

His eyes darted around _nervously._

“-the Old Woman of Ardigna,” he finished.

The logic here was fairly obvious- Feliciano, and so therefore Ludwig, would have to see the major god of every state they passed through. Cristiforus was a pretty important one for Tirovisa, and Ardigna-

“I don’t think that _‘Old Woman’_ is an accepted epithet for-”

 _“Shhhhhhhh!”_ Feliciano told him frantically, and covered Ludwig’s mouth with both of his hands. “Yes, I know, she doesn’t _look_ old, but she _is_ actually really old, and _don’t say her name._ _Or_ any of her _actual_ epithets. She’ll _look,_ and _see us,_ and she _hates me!_ ”

Ludwig had never heard _that_ before.

“Why?” he asked, pulling Feliciano’s hands away.

“You remember my story about the Lion and the Mountain of the Sky? That place my people went to in the summers, in the mountains, that’s _Beldùno._ ”

The map of the continent appeared in Ludwig’s mind. Beldùno sat on the biggest pass through the mountains to Ibana. It was a major trading city, and very close to the coast- and the large island of Ardigna.

“Wait,” he said, brow furrowing. “If Veineità was your winter place and Beldùno your summer place, then-”

“My people were the biggest power on the peninsula,” Feliciano said sadly. “Until the Tirovisans. The Ellássana settlers were a nuisance- it’s only under the empire that they got powerful. Before it was me. And the Ardigni. My people and hers were always _fighting,_ and _we_ fought, because before me _she_ controlled this part of the peninsula, so she _hates_ me now and we _have_ to avoid her, because she’d hurt you, Ludwig. So we have to put into port at Tirovisa, and then take the road up to Beldùno.”

Ludwig didn’t have a problem with that. The boat he’d taken from Parcenona to Tirovisa, when he’d been coming the opposite direction, had stopped on the costal capital of Ardigna, and he’d had two hours to look around. Tirovisa had been much more impressive.

Beldùno- well, Beldùno was a bit of an intriguing place, the myth of it holding the allure of the forbidden. It was a trader’s stop, and a bit of a merchant city, of course; but it was less appealing to go through the mountains when you could ship in the relatively warm, calm waters off of the peninsula’s western coast, and south of Galia and Ibana.

But Beldùno was still, first and foremost still the city of the Felician Mysteries, which were- well.

To other countries, Tütschen included, it was-

He had heard stories, in Bärchen, when he had been trying to find what was- what was wrong with him. Trying to work it out, in his head, and maybe, hopefully, out of his system. There was a reason the, the sodomites and the inverts and the perverts-

 _You,_ a little voice in his head accused. _You._

He tried to ignore it, as always. He’d tried, amongst the _Beldünner,_ in Bärchen, the sodomites and the inverts and the perverts, to-

It had-

Thinking about it was twisting his insides up again, and he _tried_ not to think about it, how those _stories_ were about _Feliciano’s_ Mysteries, the secrets only the really dedicated to his worship got to learn.

They were Mysteries, Ludwig told himself firmly, trying not to dwell on how _pretty_ Feliciano was, and the god had called _him ‘pretty’,_ too, and had stayed around afterwards- was escorting him _home_ like-

He wasn’t a Felician and those Mysteries weren’t meant to be known by the likes of him. The stories were probably inflated, made lurid for the titillation factor and the erotic attraction of the forbidden. It probably wasn’t anything like that.

He should think about something else.

Something else- Mysteries, no, don’t think about that-

Wait, that actually reminded him.

“Lovino and Vespasiana,” Ludwig said to Feliciano. “Why would they have _tombs?_ ”

Feliciano waited so long to say anything, looking thoughtful, that Ludwig started to think that maybe he’d asked something that wasn’t allowed to be answered. It had been brought up in the context of the Lord and Lady’s Mysteries, so he wouldn’t have been surprised if he wasn’t allowed to be told.

“The same way that the Neaellássana came from Ellássa,” Feliciano told him. “Lovino and Vespasiana came from Ellása, too, the settlers carried them over, they were all from a specific part of Ellása. It was all centered around a particular city, but it’s more of a town now, Eléthyiusia. Do you know how the Ellássana make their gods?”

Ludwig shook his head, feeling incredibly nervous. _How_ you made gods- that didn’t seem like something mortals should know.

“The Ellássana have folk heroes,” Feliciano told him. “Lovino and Vespasiana- they were Lavinas and Vespasinike, King and Queen of Eléthyiusia, a really really long time ago, like almost when the city was new. They overthrew some tyrant king or something, maybe he was one of their fathers or something, I don’t remember, it was very Tragic without being, y’know, _sad._ At least for them. When they came _here_ people started calling them Lovino and Vespasiana, Lord and Lady of Neaellása, gods of victory and strength, perseverance, marriage, community, all that. People forgot, but these reconstructionists that are popping up all over the place these days- they like doing research, and some of them aren’t as _stupid_ as mine are.”

He paused.

“And some places have a lot better religious records than I do,” he allowed. “There was this guy, Sarogasiad, way back a century or so after Neaellása was founded, and he knew _all_ the Mysteries- the ones for Lovino and Vespasiana in the new city, and the old ones from Eléthyiusia that were still hanging on, and he wrote them all down and started _telling_ people, and they had to smite him, and the priests burned the stuff he wrote about Lovino and Vespasiana but they saved the stuff about Lavinas and Vespasinike because it was _history_ and put in the Temple Archives in Neaellása, but I guess they got their hands on them. So now they know to go- knew to go? Lovino kinda sounded like they were there already, didn’t he- to Eléthyiusia, and start poking around. If the reconstructionists found their graves, they’d probably try to dig them up and relocate them, make a shrine or bring them back to Neaellása or something, and let me tell you that would make them _really_ pissed because Lovino and Vespasiana are basically ascended spirits and you should _not_ mess with spirits’ mortal remains, I’m the god of death, I _know._ ”

That was kind of a lot, for one conversation. Ludwig had the feeling not too many people- at least outside of Ellása, maybe, who knew, if _they_ knew he’d never heard of it- knew this information.

It was a little disquieting, to think that he’d been sitting at a table with- divine ghosts? Ghosts of a sort, at least. That was- actually, it was pretty terrifying, no matter if he’d actually died _himself._

Ghosts were _scary._

A shiver ran through him, and the hair on his arms stood up, both unwelcome reminders of his body. He still wasn’t feeling comfortable in it, and he still wasn’t sure _why,_ but he didn’t want to bring it up with Feliciano. It seemed like a bad idea to tell a god that their work wasn’t perfect.

“Are you,” Ludwig said, tongue feeling thick. This was probably not the best question to ask, but he had to know, now. “Are _you-_ were you. Human?”

Feliciano smiled, and the wind picked up. Overhead, the ship’s sails filled and sped them northwards, up the coast to Tirovisa.

The god stepped right up next to him, still smiling, and took Ludwig’s hands. He tried to keep his heart from racing and completely failed.

“Leave Tieuderic and come to me,” Feliciano said quietly, naming the god of the Tütsch-

 _-coyly;_ he was being _teased,_ he was not going to fall for this, Ludwig would have looked out over the ocean and away from Feliciano’s eyes but that would have been rude and the god’s eyes were enchanting and Feliciano did not _mean it_ like that, he _didn’t_ -

“And maybe I’ll tell you.”


	5. Chapter 5

The port of Tirovisa was just as busy and crowded as Ludwig remembered it, when they arrived a day and a half after leaving Neaellása.

Usually, this was a trip that took a week. The crew and captain of the ship were at once incredibly spooked and very much in awe of their good fortune.

They also hadn’t failed to miss the connection between the supernatural speed of their journey and the fact that they’d taken on passengers. As was typical, it was a multi-ethnic sort of crew, ships not caring too much who they hired to transport goods so long as they weren’t about to run off with anything, and there was a variety of speculation.

Feliciano was an easy placement- he hadn’t even really lied about his name, or made even a token attempt at hiding that things just went easier when he was around. Most of the crew contented themselves to sea offerings, dedicating a bit of their food or drink or a couple of pennies to Feliciano and then throwing it overboard, but there were a few particularly daring- or pious- sailors who went so far as to leave things outside their cabin door.

Ludwig had overheard some hushed speculation about his identity. It was a vexing topic for the sailors, because he’d lost his Tütsch accent in Tirovisan a year ago, and so all they had to go on was appearances. Blonde-and-blue-eyed, though, in the absence of accent, could be Tütsch, or Galian, or from further north, or some parts of Árdéll, or from one of the trading enclaves in any of the coastal cities.

He kind of wanted to tell them he wasn’t a god, but that seemed both presumptuous and exactly the sort of a thing a god would say.

At least they hadn’t needed to stay on board for very long.

Once they were on land, Feliciano took them straight to the center of the old city.

“It will be easier to meet our host here,” he told Ludwig. “And it gets us away from the sea and- _her._ ”

They sat down on the steps up to the main temple of Cristiforus. It wasn’t on the main road of Tirovisa but one of the more important side streets. It wasn’t really _crowded,_ but it was _busy._ Over the rooftops, the much vaster and impressive twin heights of the Patrician House, where the Council met, and the temple of Marcus, the official god of the city and empire of Tirovisa, were easily visible.

“Why are we meeting Cristiforus?” Ludwig asked Feliciano. “Why not Marcus? Does _he_ not like you, too?”

“Wha- _oh. Marcus,_ ” Feliciano said, like he’d actually _forgotten_ who that was. He glanced around, checking to see if anyone was listening, or in earshot.

That struck Ludwig as a particularly odd thing to do. He hadn’t done it all the _other_ times they’d blatantly discussed the gods in public.

“Ludwig, can you keep a secret?”

“You’ve already told me secrets,” he pointed out, dryly. “On the ship.”

“True, true,” Feliciano said. “Do you see any priests?”

_“Priests?”_

“Or oracles,” Feliciano told him. “Seers? Fortune-tellers? The extremely pious? Anybody who looks more religious-y than everyone else.”

Ludwig looked around.

“Um- no?”

“Well if _I_ can’t see anyone and _you_ can’t see anyone, then I guess there isn’t anyone,” the god said happily. “They could overhear us, you know, I can keep anyone from hearing or noticing us talking so long as they’re not already sort-of always listening that way and Cristiforus has put so much work into making sure no one knows that Marcus is dead-”

“He’s _what?_ ”

“Well _maybe_ he’s dead,” Feliciano hedged. “But he went off with the armies one day and just never came back, and seems an awful lot like dying, and it was against the Tütsch, and- oh, _you’re_ Tütsch, you know this story, Ludwig, it was the peace between Tütsch and the Tirovisans.”

“Dedschvar Mountain?” Ludwig asked, astounded. “Marcus Red-Handed died at _Dedschvar Mountain?_ ”

“ _Maybe_ died. _Probably_ died. Nobody can get Tieuderic to say if he did it or not or if he was even _there,_ ” Feliciano said. “I mean, Marcus could just as easily have gone off somewhere to sulk for a couple thousand years, he was really sensitive about the whole _‘winning wars’_ thing. Comes with being a war god and tutelary deity of an expansionist empire. There was no _way_ he could say that Dedschvar worked out for him, so…”

The god shrugged.

“He just sort of never came back, and Cristiforus- he was Cerestis Fers, then, _‘Bringer of the Grain’_ , all he had was a title and no name because he was sort of an abstract spirit of agricultural fertility, that’s language drift for you-”

“Felixian,” someone sighed. “ _Must_ you be so friendly?”

Feliciano smiled up at the man who was suddenly standing on the stairs behind them. He was rather short, actually, short enough to be a Tütsch caricature of a Tirovisan or Neaellássana, and very somber in his black and dark brown. There were hints of brilliantly-bleached white linen beneath that, but it wasn’t ornamentation so much as a highlight to emphasize just how much _dark_ he was wearing.

“Some of us do like having secrets, you know,” he said.

“Cristiforus!” Feliciano said happily. “Ludwig, this is Cristiforus, he’s really nice, even nicer than me!”

Ludwig was unconvinced that anyone could be nicer than Feliciano, but it was good to hear such confidence in this new god’s temperament. This should be a more pleasant meeting than in Neaellása, or what could have been here with Marcus.  

“Ludwig’s good at secrets,” Feliciano assured Cristiforus, before Ludwig had figured out if _‘hello’_ was formal enough or not.

“They will not be secrets if you insist on _telling_ people them.”

“I’ve only told _Ludwig_ about Marcus,” Feliciano complained. “And a couple of my people who were worried about Tirovisa trying to conquer my things-”

“You told your entire priesthood; _and_ Beldùna.”

“It was not _all_ of Beldùna! It was only the _teireiseos_!”

“Felixan,” Cristiforus said. “The only people in Beldùna who are _not teireiseos_ are the foreigners.”

“Are _not,_ ” Feliciano muttered, sulking.

Cristiforus patted him on the head.

 “So you have found another _teireiseos,_ then?” he asked, nodding at Ludwig.

“Lovino asked that as well, uh, sir,” Ludwig said. “What _is_ a _teireiseos_?”

Cristiforus raised his eyebrows, and looked at Feliciano. Feliciano gave him a look that Ludwig couldn’t parse; but evidently the other god understood it perfectly.

“Ah,” was all he said.

“ _Teireiseos_ are part of my Mysteries, Ludwig,” Feliciano told him. “They’re the- the most mysterious part. The most important part. The ones closest to my heart.”

Oh for the sake of all things holy why did he have to _say_ that last part, that was not- this was-

This was all _completely_ inappropriate, he was _not_ going to fall for-

No, Ludwig sighed to himself. He wasn’t _going_ to fall for Feliciano. He already _had._

 _Completely_ inappropriate.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to remind you that this is a pastiche of (mostly) fake early 1800s/late 1800s/1900-1925ish European/American technology levels and societal norms and, accordingly, we have the corresponding sexism and concepts about homosexuality re: sex. We've also got the period-appropriate conflation of homosexuality and gender identity. This starts at the end of this chapter and is going to hold at least through all of the next, you have been warned, proceed with appropriate caution.

The road to Beldùno was full of stress for Ludwig, because they were back to inns and camping out. Feliciano got more and more animated the longer the trip went on, talking about how, after about half a day’s ride west of Tirovisa, they were on the old path his people had taken from Veineità to Beldùno and back early each spring and autumn.

It was- _distracting,_ seeing him even happier than usual, or even just happy, or simply _existing._ He kept trying not to smile and trying not to get warm and fluttery inside but it _was not working._

And they were going to Beldùno.

 _“I’ve been traveling to try to find myself”_ was a euphemism, in Tütschen, and especially in Bärchen and the other large cities, for leaving home because you had Problems. The point wasn’t really finding _yourself,_ as you were. It was finding the person you were supposed to be, the person you had to be to be acceptable at home. You left, you Learned the Error of Your Ways, and you came back a ready and competent adult, virtuous and good and-

And he’d been so _close-_

Ludwig felt like crying, at least once a night, but he managed to keep himself from it.

At least they were going to Beldùno. He’d purposefully avoided it on the way down, as a _‘wretched cesspit of vice and perversion’,_ so the travel guides and the personal stories of the other people who had traveled to find themselves called it, because he’d been trying to make himself better.

Maybe, if he had one more night- one more _long_ night- then he could work it out of his system. He could go home and be the person he was supposed to be.

The night before they got to Beldùno, when they had camped at the foot of the mountain range, was the time when it was hardest to not cry. He’d held himself together until Feliciano had dropped off to sleep, and then sat up on his bedroll, arms around his drawn-up knees and burying his face in them, shaking, and- it wasn’t crying if you weren’t making any noise. Then it was just tears.

He wasn’t supposed to want these things but he didn’t want to give them up he didn’t want to try to sneak out tomorrow night to- to do _things_ but it was all he’d been able to think about for longer than a few minutes all of today-

“Ludwig.”

He just about jumped out of his skin. His head shot up and he let go of his legs, started to scramble backwards-

Feliciano wrapped _his_ arms around Ludwig’s knees, and Ludwig froze.

“You were asleep,” he said, after a few moments of trying to speak.

“You’re upset,” Feliciano told him, which was only sort of an answer. “Ludwig, you’ve been upset and jumpy and stressed since we left Tirovisa.”

He wasn’t going to deny that, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it, either.

“It’s Beldùno, isn’t it.”

That was not a question.

Feliciano looked sort of- _sad._

“Tütsch come to harbor, in Veineità,” he said. “For trade, and tourism, and things. I know they’re, _you’re-_ uh, _your people-_ they’re a lot more strict and angry about some sorts of things than my people are. What do they say about Beldùno in Bärchen, Ludwig? What did they tell you?”

“They-”

Feliciano hadn’t seemed like the sort of god to get offended by things- for goodness’s sake, _he’d_ been _killed_ in sacrifice to Feliciano, and all the god had gotten was sort of regretful and slightly disbelieving, he’d had the police deal with everything else.

Surely-

Surely scurrilous, lurid rumors wouldn’t make him angry.

“They said it was the place for- for perverts. Inverts. Sodomites. People who- prostitutes, prostitutes that will do a-anything.”

“Like what?” Feliciano asked. He had his back to the fire, and the edges of his hair were glowing red in the light, and his eyes were brighter, somehow, light didn’t work like that but it was true regardless. He shifted his grip on Ludwig’s legs, so it was more of a hug than a hold.

“In,” Ludwig said. “In Beldùno. The prostitutes aren’t all _female._ There are men. Men who will kneel at a woman’s feet and use their tongues and hands. Men who will take another man and-”

 _Are you going to go down on **your** knees, in Beldùno? _the malicious little voice asked him. _Cock down your throat in the middle of the brotheling bars and you don’t care whose? Bent over a chair for anyone to take you in the ass, make you their woman, where **everyone** can see?_

“-do the same,” Ludwig continued. “Who will let themselves be sodomized, or do it for- for others. Women, who will take other women. People, not even all of them prostitutes- they’ll tie you up, or hit you, or order you around; or not let you, not let you finish until _they_ can’t go any longer or even not at _all,_ or humiliate you-”

_But that wasn’t enough for you was it it wasn’t enough that you found people to put you in a skirt and they called you a whore and a slut and a woman and **took** you **used** you **NO** you **enjoy it,** you **like it;** you like it so much you want to-_

“-or you can do it to _them,_ with some of them. A-and there are other people. Men in dresses and skirts and makeup. Women in pants and suits and fake- fake-”

Feliciano was _looking_ at him.

“- _cocks,_ ” he forced himself to say.

He was trembling, still. Feliciano squeezed his knees.

“And how much of that have _you_ done?” he asked; and Ludwig’s brain froze up in panic.

“Ludwig; Ludwig, no, no,” Feliciano said sadly, and reached for him. “Ludwig, no- it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Ludwig didn’t know how it happened. He knew how it _must_ have happened, but he wasn’t going to think about it, because the tears were back- had they actually stopped? They must have stopped, or Feliciano would have said something about it- and Feliciano was leaning over him, one hand planted on either side of Ludwig on the blankets beneath them and the other touching his face ever so gently, and kneeling between his legs.

Ludwig shut his eyes and turned his face into Feliciano’s touch.

“Can I get closer?”

“What?” he asked, not opening his eyes.

“You look like you need a hug,” he heard Feliciano say. “But you should always ask before you get close to someone like that.”

Ludwig reached up and pulled him down, and Feliciano gently rolled them over onto their sides and held Ludwig’s face to his chest, one arm holding him close, free hand in his hair.

He remembered shaking, and at some point he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up still in Feliciano’s arms, and holding him back.

The god kissed him good morning, and they had to take about a dozen extra minutes to get up and continue on to Beldùno because Ludwig didn’t want to let go. He just wanted to keep lying there, Feliciano’s chest against his ear, warm and close with the illogical _th-thumm_ of his heart- he was a god, what did _he_ need with a heart- quiet and comforting, forever.

Ludwig did not want to go home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, we get into gender shenanigans. Notes from last chapter also still apply, and will continue to apply into the next chapter.

They didn’t go in the main gates of Beldùno, though they had been on the road to do so. Instead, Feliciano had them ride the horses off the side of the road, once they were in sight of the city walls, and into a patch of trees, and then-

They were in the city?

From the trees they’d emerged in a small back stable yard, in a city house with a low stone wall, stopped at maybe waist height, with wrought-iron railing anchored in the mortar over that, to keep people from just climbing or jumping over.

“This is my house!” Feliciano said brightly.

“Your- your _house?_ ” Ludwig said, looking around. Someone came out of the house and bowed deeply to Feliciano, and reached for the horses reins. Ludwig got down quickly, not wanting to impede the smooth and proper functioning of the household.

“Of course, _my_ house,” he said. “I wouldn’t just take us to _anybody’s_ house, that would be rude.”

“But you have… temples,” Ludwig said, still rather confused. “Big ones.”

“Why would I live in a temple?” Feliciano asked, sounding just as confused. “There’s always people coming and going and making noise and asking for things, and that’s fine that’s what you _do_ at a temple you tell the gods how great they are and ask for things and I _like_ giving people what they want but it’s not a _home._ ”

“Isn’t Veineità your home, though?”

“Sure,” Feliciano said, as they walked around the house from the back stable yard to use the proper door. “But it’s- it’s not the same. They’ve become pretty Tirovisan in Veineità, and it’s cosmopolitan and it’s not _bad_ but it’s- it’s different.”

A different servant, not the one who’d taken the horses, held the front door open for them, and murmured: “Welcome home, Felixian.”

“Anyway,” Feliciano- Felixian? He _had_ been told, back in Veineità, that that was the older name, and it was what was still used in Beldùno, though everyone else used the Tirovisanized form. “Beldùno is _important._ ”

Felixian- after a couple of minutes in his company, this was _definitely_ Felixian, there was a difference from Feliciano that Ludwig couldn’t quite define- showed him around the house, a sort of informal tour. There was the kitchen, currently not in use, a little dining room, a sitting room, an arts room, and a reading room on the first floor. Behind the kitchen, Felixian told him, were the servant’s quarters- he kept a groom for the horses, a butler, and a maidservant on full-time, housed and fed, no matter if he was here or not. Priests, temple initiates, and the particularly devout and trusted could volunteer to come clean the bottom floor on the weekly schedule.

The top floor, Ludwig was told as they ascended the stairs, was private.

“Since your house is here, are we going to be staying a little longer than usual?” Ludwig asked.

Felixian smiled at him, and opened a door to a bedroom. He took Ludwig’s bags and placed them inside, against the wall.

“We’re going to stay in Beldùno for as long as you need.”

Ludwig got the entire way into the bedroom before that sentence really registered with him.

“But I don’t _need_ any time in Beldùno,” he said.

Felixian closed the door.

“Yes, you do,” the god told him. “You were shaking and crying last night and you _do_ need Beldùno, Ludwig, please don’t try to say you don’t. I’ve met an awful lot of Tütsch who went off to _‘find themselves’,_ and I don’t want you to be one of the ones who goes home unhappy.”

“Y-You knew,” Ludwig said. “The whole time- you _knew-_ ”

“Once you said that, yeah,” Felixian said, walking around him to sit down on the bed. “I was already going to come with you _anyway_ so long as you agreed but I was happy to hear that you _hadn’t_ actually _‘found yourself’_ yet because that meant I had some time to help you, because you hadn’t made up your mind to commit to something yet.”

“You were- you were _planning-_ ”

“The only thing I was planning, Ludwig,” Felixian said softly. “Was to be your friend. Being friends can help with a lot of things.”

He held out his hands and made the _‘come here’_ gesture with both sets of fingers. Nervously, Ludwig stepped forwards. Felixian’s hands went to rest on his hips. Ludwig had no idea what to do with his, it felt very awkward not to have them occupied in this moment, and somehow they ended up on the god’s shoulders.

“Now,” Felixian said. “You can go out this evening, and I can introduce you to people, and you can find something in the city- but you could also stay here, with me, and _I_ could do things for you.”

This new shaky feeling was definitely more nerves than arousal, but there was definitely some of that. To think of having Felixian-

“I,” Ludwig managed to say after a moment. “I’d like to stay here.”

Felixian smiled.

“How do you want me, then?”

“What?”

“Like this, or-”

There was a moment’s pause, and Ludwig expected him to- lie down, or take off some clothes, or _something,_ to give a hint, but he didn’t move.

“-this?”

He must have missed some sort of cue, from not ever having done this the- the normal way, before.

“I don’t understand,” he finally admitted.

His hands were moved from Felixian’s shoulders, placed further down, on the chest-

Ludwig snatches his hands away.

“What!” he said, not quite able to think past the surprise yet. “What!”

Felixian leaned back, and made the outline of- his? her? What did you _say_ in this situation, humans didn’t just _change_ things like that- breasts were clearly visible under the fabric of- her, probably her- shirt.

She tilted her head to one side and smiled, fluttering her eyelashes, a moment of flirtation.

“You also don’t have to choose one or the other,” she told him. “There’s plenty of options.”

“You,” Ludwig said faintly. “You do this often, then?”

 _“Ludwig,”_ Felixian said. “I’m a _god,_ remember? _‘Incomprehensibly **huge** ’_. I’m _everything,_ all the time- just because _you’ve_ been seeing one part of me consistently doesn’t mean I’m not being other things with other people.”

“So,” he said, trying to get himself back together. “All the time then.”

“Come back?” Felixian asked, holding out a hand. “You don’t have to. If that was too-”

Ludwig grabbed her hand.

“No, it- I was just surprised,” he told her. He felt- strange, twisting up or shriveling up inside, like he had the night before talking about what they said about Beldùno in Bärchen, but not quite as much. It was the same, but different, and _why_ did feelings have to be so _imprecise?_

“Oh!” Felixian said happily. Beaming, she tugged him into coming to sit on the bed with her, up in the middle of the mattress. “Then we can talk about all the _other_ options-”

_“Other-”_

“Well,” she amended, at his look. “Later, then. But people are lot more complicated than two sets of bodies, Ludwig, okay? Don’t forget that, in Beldùno; well _anywhere,_ but mostly here because people expect that from other places but not _here,_ Beldùno is _my_ place so people aren’t _allowed_ to think like that.”  

“I’ll try,” he promised.

“And I’ll remind you,” Felixian promised in turn, giving him a kiss. “And help you. Now. How do you want me?”

That sounded _wrong_ to Ludwig, and there was something working its way up from his memory- oh.

“ _You’re_ not a prostitute,” he said, remembering the way the young men at _Gymnausium,_ before he’d left, had talked about their adventures into the night streets. “And- you shouldn’t change yourself to make other people happy.”

That was advice from his parents, though it had been more complicated than that. He knew perfectly well, and they knew that he knew, that sometimes you _did_ have to change yourself to get other people to like you, or to fit in, or however. You just picked certain things, decided that you would _never_ compromise on them, and then gave up the rest.

How your body was seemed like a pretty basic thing not to change for someone else, to Ludwig.

 _“Oh,”_ Felixian said, and hugged him tightly. “ _Ludwig-_ you’re going to be _fine_ here, after a little practice and I teach you some things!”

She pulled back again.

“But it’s fine, Ludwig, really,” she told him. “I’m a woman, I’m a man, I’m both, I’m somewhere in between, I’m something else entirely, I’m absolutely no gender at all- _all the time._ I have no idea _how_ I’d manage if I wasn’t a god and couldn’t be around a bunch of different people and sort of spread it all out, but I want you happy, okay, and I’m going to be happy no matter what makes _you_ happy.”

“If you’re all that at once,” Ludwig said, and- no, the twisty feeling was back, and it was- was it _want?_ It wasn’t arousal, or at least it wasn’t _all_ arousal, and- he’d been _trying_ not to think about that because- “Why don’t people know? Why don’t your priests-”

“Ah,” Felixian said happily. “Ah! _Mysteries,_ Ludwig, _Mysteries._ They _do_ know!”

Her smile fell a bit.

“My people _used_ to know,” she said. “Before the Tirovisans. But then they got more and more Tirovisan and got more things from the Ibanese and the Galians and the Tütsch, too, and- it wasn’t working any longer. They wanted me to be a man, the Tirovisans and all the others, so- I did, to survive. I didn’t want someone coming along and trying to _outlaw_ me for, hm, for _perversion,_ because I knew people _would_ say that, so I let it all go to the Mysteries. _But-_ ”

A _fierce_ smile, now.

“-I didn’t let them take my _teireiseos_! They can’t _touch_ them; not in Beldùno, not in Veineità, not in Tirovisa or Neaellása or Árdáll or Ibana or Galia, or even Tütsch! Not unless they want me _and_ their god down on their heads!”

“ _Teireiseos_ again,” Ludwig said.

“I’ll take you to meet some, Ludwig, they all know me. Now, how-”

Ludwig knew what he wanted.

He knew what he wanted but Felixian could talk about doing anything all she wanted but _this,_ she wasn’t the sort of person who would, she, she _cared_ too much and Ludwig _hated_ to admit that but it was _true-_

He could fake it. He could pretend. Just this once. That he didn’t want that.

“I like both,” he told Felixian, starting off with the truth. “Men, women. But I can have women in Bärchen.”

Very true. No one would care if he went out to the female prostitutes there- he was a young, unmarried man of the bourgeoisie. It was expected.

People wouldn’t even care that much if he went to the male prostitutes, either, so long as he didn’t let anyone see him, or ever talked about it, and found a wife; almost the same way that no one cared in Tirovisa, so long as the other man wasn’t as important as you, and younger, and you were- and you kept yourself a man.

Ludwig told himself again that he could _pretend,_ for Felixian, that he didn’t need anything so- perverted. He could be normal, today, as normal as you could get in this situation.

He’d tried before and it hadn’t worked but he _could_ do it this time, he _would,_ he’d think about Felixian and not _him;_ if he was thinking about something else-

Felixian pulled her shirt off. One moment, there were breasts; the next not, as Felixian changed again.

Ludwig was watching, this time, and-

He’d _said_ he was going to pretend, but between one second and the next he just _broke,_ because-

It wasn’t _fair._

_It wasn’t **fair.**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, reminder, 1800s-ish ideas on gender and sexuality and their relationship to one another, blatant sexism, some- probably self-destructive? it wasn't really positively motivated anyway- sexual activity, lots of internalized nastiness, please mind the story tags.

This was ridiculous. This was _absolutely_ ridiculous, he hadn’t cried this much since he’d been a child, he was an adult, he was a _man-_

“Ludwig?”

Felixian was holding his head, now, hands gentle.

“Ludwig, hey. Don’t- don’t make yourself do something you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to-”

“I _do,_ ” Ludwig said. “I just- give me- give me a minute, I-”

Felixian moved them around, and Ludwig let himself be tipped over to rest against Felixian’s chest, once more in a hug.

“No,” he- he? Ludwig did not have the mental capacity to worry about this now, Felixian would say something if he was upset, it was how he was- said. “There’s something else wrong, Ludwig, and you can have all the time you need to cry but you need to talk about this, I’m here to help.”

He wasn’t going to be able to get out of this, was he?

And- maybe if he _did_ tell Felixian- he’d said before he could help Ludwig find people. Maybe he _could_ find some people, and he could be done with this, finally.

“It’s me,” Ludwig told Felixian. “ _I’m_ wrong.”

Felixian just held him tighter and gave him a kiss on the hair, waiting for him to continue.

“I- in Bärchen- I’d go out, sometimes,” Ludwig made himself say. “To the bars. The brotheling bars, where you went if you- it wasn’t prostitutes, or it wasn’t _just_ prostitutes. If you just wanted to find someone, for the night, or for longer-”

“We have those here too,” Felixian told him. “We don’t call them that, but I know what you mean.”

“I tried women,” Ludwig said. “And I liked the ones I tried with, we were friends and I loved at least one of them, but it didn’t work. I thought- maybe I was tricking myself, or maybe I needed to see what I _really_ didn’t want, so I went to the ones for the male inverts, and-”

He remembered it, still, going around the bars for the first time. It hadn’t seemed like much, at first, but then he’d found one where-

“-there were these people, they were- the Bärchen standards are kind of like the ones in Tirovisa. The more money you have, the higher your social standing, the older you are- you’re the man, here. The poor ones and the prostitutes and the young ones, they’re expected to take it, and that’s what I’d been seeing, but _here-_ ”

On the surface of it, hearing about it in comments, Ludwig hadn’t thought it was much of anything, but _seeing it-_

“-it was supposed to be humiliation. It was supposed to be shaming, because some people like that. They’d take men, _masculine_ men, and dress them up as women and _fuck_ them like women, like the street rent boys, free for the taking however, by whoever, and-”

He’d done it. He’d done it and then he’d come _back_ and done it again, and again, and again. It was like being addicted, he’d let them make him a woman and then he couldn’t _stop._

“-I _liked_ it,” Ludwig whispered. _This_ was humiliation; _this_ was shame. The others had liked that feeling- he never had. It ate at him, and he couldn’t get rid of it, because he’d _broken_ something inside when he’d given in like that. He hadn’t _been_ like that before.

He’d been uncomfortable, with the women. He hadn’t been able to work out why, but in those bars he’d figured it out. With the women, he’d been a man.

With the men-

“You weren’t supposed to _like it,_ ” he said, feeling the hysteria mount up. He’d spent time, too much time, trying to decide if he should take the step of sullying his name and reputation by going to one of the new psychologists. It was said they wouldn’t talk, but people would know he’d _gone,_ and others would talk, and eventually _someone_ would start talking about the bars. “The sex, yes, the humiliation and the powerlessness, I guess; but you weren’t supposed to _like it,_ when they- when they-”

“When they what, Ludwig?” Felixian asked after a moment.

“They called me a woman and I _liked it,_ ” Ludwig said in a rush. “Not the way they _wanted_ me to like I I liked it like I wanted to get up and walk around in the street and have people think I was a lady and that’s _ridiculous,_ it would never work, no one would- I’d get arrested, or someone would hear about it, I’d ruin my reputation, I don’t _want_ to be a prostitute but I went to the bars and I did it there and even after just the first time I couldn’t have sex properly, I couldn’t find a woman and I couldn’t take a man, I _had_ to be there, in the dresses and the skirts and it didn’t matter what they did I couldn’t finish until, until I felt so _used_ and completely emasculated that I _believed_ them when they said I was a woman and I could _forget-_ but then I’d come and-”

Felixian was murmuring to him, _‘it’s okay, it’s okay’,_ and little meaningless comforting noises, hands fluttering around to pet hair or rub soothingly, and Ludwig had no idea when he’d stopped talking but it was hard enough to handle crying and breathing at once and he had a headache like this had been going on a while.

“It’s not,” he was eventually able to say. “It’s _not_ okay, someone _saw_ me, at the bars, and usually people don’t _say_ anything as long as you don’t say anything but this was so _wrong_ so they _talked_ and it wasn’t a _lot_ of people, because my parents- they convinced people not to but I couldn’t show my face without people _knowing_ so I left, I left and I promised my parents I’d come back better, but I _can’t_ but I _want to_ and I want to go _home_ but it’s _not_ home, you’re supposed to feel _safe_ at home-”

“It’s _going_ to be okay,” Felixian promised him. “It’s _going_ to be, because I can _do_ something about this. Look at me.”

Ludwig met his eyes.

“When you said you wanted to be a woman,” he said. “Did you mean it like _me?_ Like _this?_ ”

Ludwig waited for Felixian to change again, but nothing happened. He felt his expression go confused and for a moment Felixian mirrored him; but the god smiled, just slightly, and looked up to something behind Ludwig’s back.

He turned around to look. There was a floor mirror there, next to the far wall opposite the bed, next to the wardrobe.

Wait- in the reflection; that didn’t look like-

Felixian pulled Ludwig’s shirt back, pulling it tight around the swell of breasts, and the slight inward curve of the waist before the widening of the hips-

“Is that what you wanted?” Felixian asked.

Ludwig had thought the tears were _finally_ almost done; but no. There were still plenty more.


	9. Chapter 9

Ludwig woke up alone in Felixian’s bed, the next morning, without any clear memories of falling asleep.

He- she- he-

Ludwig had no idea how to think about herself- himself? _‘He’_ was familiar, but didn’t sit right; _‘she’_ sounded like it couldn’t possibly be true, but the _want-_

She. Ludwig could have she, in private, with- herself, or Felixian. No one would say anything about it, here.

She checked her body hesitantly, a little scared that she was just remembering the feel of breasts and a different set of genitalia, and that it had all gone back to how it was, overnight- or during the day? What time was it now?- but everything was as she last remembered it.

The relief of that was so intense that she would have cried again, if there was anything left. She needed water, and food, and maybe a hot towel for her head to do something about the sore, muzzy feeling.

“Hey,” she heard Felixian say quietly. “How are you?”

She turned over, wrapping the sheets around herself in the process, and found the god sitting at the little correspondence desk by the door. Her bags had been moved on top of it.

“I think,” she said hesitantly. “Happy.”

Felixian beamed.

“Good!” he said. “Good! Second question- usually people take a new name, you don’t _have_ to, I’ll keep calling you Ludwig and other people will too and they won’t be mean about it, not _here,_ and not other places so long as you’re with me and they know who I am, but it could be useful if you have a woman’s name and usually people like to change it, so do you have one you like? About half the time people don’t have one, so I give them one, but if you have something-”

“You give _other people_ new names?” she asked, sudden emotion flaring. Hope, she thought it might be. She hadn’t ever had occasion for it, before. “You do this a lot? There are- _others?_ ”

“Of course there are others!” Felixian told her, and came to sit with her on the bed, instead of halfway across the room in the chair. “Lots of others! And a lot of them here-”

The god laughed a little, suddenly.

“-oh, I just, Lovino and Cristiferus, they both thought you were one of my _teireiseos_ and I said you weren’t but they were _right;_ I just hadn’t figured it out yet!”

“The _teireiseos,_ ” she said. “ _That’s_ what they are? People like me?”

“Not just like you,” Felixian said. “Men, women, just people, all _sorts_ of possibilities. Some of them want me to change them completely, and some of them only want me to do a little, and some of them don’t want me to do anything at all but _be there,_ and say that they’re not wrong, and give them a place to belong. There’s lots of different people, but yes, they were all- well you know. I can take you to meet some of them, it’s about dinner time, I know where some of the other Tütsch will be, so do you want to go, and do you want to say you’re _‘Ludwig’_ or something else? It won’t matter to them if you want to change it later, if you’re not sure, they all understand.”

“I never thought about it,” she told him. “Some of the rent boys, _they_ had women’s names, for when they were working, but I couldn’t- thinking about it was going too far.”

“Do you want to keep _‘Ludwig’,_ then?”

“No,” she said. This was an easy enough decision, at least. “I should do this properly.”

“There’s not really _‘properly’_ way to do this,” Felixian said, sounding a bit exasperated- but he was smiling, too, used to how she was after all these days of traveling together. “Do you have any you like, then?”

The only name she could think of right away was her mother’s, and that would be a bit strange.

“I’d be honored if you picked one for me,” she told Felixian.

“Oooooh, _flattery,_ ” Felixian said teasingly, sounding pleased nonetheless. “I think you could be a _‘Monika’_ , Tütsch just took that form from Tirovisan, no one will know the difference unless you have to write it down and it’s got _‘nika’_ in it, _‘victory’,_ it’s a nice strong name and I know Tütsch likes having names like that.”

“Monika is fine,” Monika said. “Thank you.”

“So do you want to go see people then?” Felixian asked. “We could have dinner!”

“I don’t have any clothes,” Monika remembered.

“Wha- _oh; that’s_ what you mean,” the god said. “Well, I can fix that too! Come on.”

She was still wearing the clothes she’d been traveling in when they reached the city, and then fallen asleep in, so it was pretty embarrassing to suddenly turn up in a clothesmaker’s shop like that, especially one that looked so respectable. It wasn’t _fancy,_ but the man behind the counter certainly wasn’t dressed badly, and his wares on display were of good quality.

“Sebastian, this is Monika, she’s new, she needs clothes,” Felixian told the man behind the counter.

This was apparently enough information, because the man _ding_ ed the counter bell and a shop assistant turned up.

“Liesl!” Felixian said happily. “Hi! This is Monika, she needs clothes, and then we’re coming to dinner with you and Sebastian. Monika, this is Liesl, they’re from Tütsch too, and so’s Sebastian-”

“ _‘They’_?” Monika asked, as Liesl motioned for her to come to the back of the shop.

“Yes, _‘they’_ ,” Felixian told her, and Monika remembered what she’d been told and just tried to remember that.

“What part of Tütsch are you from, Monika?” Liesl asked, once she’d caught up. They had grabbed one of the baskets of measuring and tailoring supplies and set up a low dressmaker’s stool for her to stand on.

“Bärchen,” Monika told them, stepping up onto the stool and holding her arms out. It had been a while since she’d been to a clothesmaker’s shop, but she wasn’t about to forget a lifetime of visits.

“Sebastian and I are from the mountains on the Galian border,” Liesl told her, starting measurements. "Not the same place, but close. So how did Felixian find you?”

Monika thought about how she wanted to answer that, for a minute. There was a lot she just wasn’t going to tell a stranger, even if Felixian _had_ introduced them.

“I left home to find myself.”

 _“Oh,”_ Liesl said, pausing a moment. “I’m sorry. We heard about it, Sebastian and I, but it’s different near Galia. We know about Felixian, there.”

“It’s been- all right,” Monika told her, and Liesl finished taking her measurements, and got her fitted with something for dinner, and promised that she could come back in a day or two and everything else would be done, they’d send a note over to Felixian’s house to let her know.

“Pants!” Felixian said cheerfully when they came back to the front of the store. “Very modern of you, Monika, you look nice!”

He offered his hand and she took it, and they went to dinner with Sebastian and Liesl.

It was a place a bit like the restaurant where they’d met Lovino and Vespasiana, in Neaellása, but less fancy. It was a less-pretentious imitation, and had a bit of a feel of the neighborhood tavern about it, and it was chock full of _teireiseos._

They all acted like Felixian being there was no big deal, which, Monika figured, it might not have been to them, but it was still odd to have other people as comfortable around the god as she was.

Sebastian and Liesl talked more about themselves- they’d come from the same county, down on the border with Galia, and the rather more fluid attitude about what was _‘Tütsch’_ and what was _‘Galian’_ or _‘Tirovisan’_ had served them well. Sebastian had gone down to one of the valley cities to learn how to make men’s outfits in addition to women’s things, and Liesl had eventually come down from the mountains, too, some years after their self-discovery, and the two had worked together in Sebastian’s boss’s shop.

“And then Felixian asked us to come to Beldùno,” Sebastian told her. “So we came, and got our shop.”

“There were other Tütsch, who I kept finding,” Felixiano explained to Monika. “But none of them were staying in Beldùno and I needed some Tütsch too, and there’s _always_ a need for new clothes here, so I thought they’d work out well and they did.”

Alastair was Tütsch on a technicality, and particularly far from his hometown on the craggy northwestern shores and islands of Tütschen, which most of the rest of the country still mostly regarded as foreigners and brigands and barbarians, even a century and a half after they’d been joined in royal marriage to the rest of the country.

“It’s a kilt,” he said, when he caught her staring. “Not a skirt. My skirts are longer than this. Welcome to Beldùno, lass.”

Charlotte was west midlands Tütsch, and the closest thing Beldùno seemed to have, at the moment, to another Bärchener. Her brother, Monika learned, was a merchant who did most of his business in Bärchen, by the name of Falko Zhegers.

That name sounded vaguely familiar, but Monika couldn’t think of where or how she knew it.

There were other Tütsch _teireiseos,_ Felixian assured her, but most of them didn’t stay in Beldùno. It was so far away from home, for them, and too close to the heart of their home country’s rival empire. They moved to different cities or towns in Tütsch, usually leaving their pasts and families behind them, or they went to Veineità, with its ethnic trading enclaves for company from home.

Monika wondered how many _teireiseos_ she’d inadvertently passed in the Tütsch Quarter, and if she could have saved herself some trouble by paying more attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _real_ point of this story was actually this city full of happy trans people, sometimes you just need that in your life.


	10. Chapter 10

They had been in Beldùno for three months before Monika worked herself up to asking Charlotte and Alastair and the others what they’d done about their families.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t gotten to know them- they were all friends, by the first couple of weeks, because being the only five Tütsch in a city that was mostly Tirovisan, even if it _was_ more _‘Felician’_ than generally _‘Tirovisian’_ , gave them a lot in common.

Monika had just been- hearing things, from the other _teireiseos,_ about how they’d had to leave home and family and old friends, and stayed in Beldùno because they had nowhere else to go. Sometimes it was a lack of connections elsewhere; but a lot of it had to do with being _known,_ and not having to worry, and being able to do just about whatever the hell you wanted as far as your clothes and your socializing and what you said; and that was almost impossible to give up, once you’d known that freedom.

But, after all this time, Monika had a fairly good idea of why there weren’t more Tütsch around. This wasn’t much of a community for foreigners- the Tütsch and the Ellássana and the Árdéllians and few scattered others formed a loose connection of something, but even here there were more Ellássana than Árdéllians, and more Árdéllians than Tütsch. Even the miscellaneous group, that had formed from the people who were the only one from their area- like Muhammed- or the only two or three, had more people than they did.

She- she kind of wanted to go home. Now that she’d _really_ found herself, she wanted to go home.

There was a fantasy, she had, of going back to Bärchen with Felixian, man or woman or whatever else the god chose, and introducing her family; slotting right back into place like everything was normal and the way things had always been-

But her parents would never be able to explain this. She wouldn’t be able to stay home- or she _could,_ in disguise somehow, as a classy servant, maybe.

Or just never leave, like Gilbert.

Monika’s even dearer fantasy was that her parents would pick up and move, somewhere entirely new, and she and Gilbert wouldn’t have to hide.

She knew how much effort her parents had put in, though, to moving to Bärchen from the Tütsch border with Árdéll- _Mutti_ had quietly changed her name to be Tütsch and not Árdéllian, and had never spoken a word of her native language to either of them, because she and _Vater_ both knew that there was nothing for them, out on the border. The only way to get anything like what they wanted was to go to Bärchen, and do the best they could to fit in, and affect a higher social status than they’d really been born to so their _children_ could have that- their parents had talked a lot about it to them both when they were younger, about how the social contacts and socializing and all the games and politics they had to play were to keep _Vater_ employed and employable and keep them from going back to the border they’d fled from.

Looks and reputation were everything, and _Vater_ could do both with more refinement than most of those born to it could, and _Mutti_ managed it by venting her frustration at having to sit around all day and give up the little freedom the border towns had afforded her into the polite verbal fights no one wanted cross her in, to the point that now no one would dare say a _word_ about their suspicions that she was Árdéllian and not properly Tütsch at all-

But for children- they’d gotten Gilbert, and her.

Monika felt like a waste but she wanted to go _home,_ at least once, and tell them she’d found somewhere to be happy in, and someone with.

She’d set up lunch with Charlotte and the others, and they’d been quietly surprised when she’d shown up without Felixian. It was common knowledge around the city, now, that she was Felixian’s lady, and they weren’t often apart.

“I can’t be much help,” Sebastian told her, once she’d said what the problem was. “It’s different in the mountains. We have shrines to Felixian there, mostly, because Galia and the Tirovisans are right next door; but the nearest town had a little temple, and a lot of people went at least a couple of times a season to ask for luck or happiness or for help. The time I went and asked for this-”

He gestured to himself.

“-Felixian turned up right in the temple and fixed things for me. Most of my village was there, including my parents. The temple priest and Felixian explained some things, and everyone acted like things had never been any different, even after I’d left for the city.”

 “Felixian didn’t come for me,” Liesl said. “But I didn’t have to ask. Someone from my village had gone into Felixian temple service, and the traveling priests are a lot freer about what they say in the mountains than in the valleys, so everyone knew that I had a god backing me when I told them about what I was.”

“My family probably thinks I’m dead,” was Alastair’s contribution to the conversation. “I’d write them and inform them differently if I actually gave a shit, or thought they’d care that I was happy. They spent enough damn years trying to make me feel bad that I’m saving the _‘fuck you, I’m divinely validated’_ letter for a day when I could _really use_ the mental image of them spontaneously combusting in outrage.”

It took Charlotte a minute to start talking.

“I knew for a while,” she said. “Since _Gymnasium,_ I think. I had trouble with it all through university, but Falco- he had a place our father paid for in the university town, as part of the business; and once Falco found out he had me over whenever I wanted and I could be myself, behind locked doors. It kept people from knowing and it kept me from looking for the bars, like you did, Monika, and our reputation clean. After university our father sent us together on a trip to Tirovisa, and we came through Beldùno, and Felixian found me. She told me _everything-_ ”

They gave Charlotte a moment. It was clear the memories were catching up with her, and they all knew the intensity of that first moment of validation.

“-but I couldn’t take it- well, I wouldn’t, not while my parents were still alive. I was too scared and I didn’t want to have to lie to them, to have Falco go back alone and say I’d died on the road or disappeared or run off or something. Felixian told me it was an open offer, all I had to do was ask, at any time, and she’d show up. Falco and I left immediately for Beldùno as soon as our parents died, and I managed to keep from asking until we’d gotten here, and I haven’t left since. Falco comes to see me- he’s busy, but he makes the time.”

Charlotte’s story was at least a _little_ reassuring. Her parents might not have ever approved, but her brother had.

Gilbert understood about being different, and not welcome. Monika was cautiously optimistic about him, at least. Her parents-

She just didn’t know. _Vater_ had been stiff and cold and distantly judgmental, whenever anyone mentioned what had happened, but that was always with other people. Monika hadn’t dared say anything to him about it. Even when she told him she was leaving, there hadn’t been any allusion to it.

 _Mutti_ had sat with her, in the immediate aftermath of the rumors and the talk and the accusations, and said that she wasn’t mad, and wasn’t upset, and wasn’t disappointed. And maybe she _wasn’t,_ not in Monika- well, _‘Ludwig’_ then, and what _‘he’_ had done, but Monika knew full well what the stigma of her presence would do to her parents’ social standing, and she knew that _Mutti_ wasn’t really happy about _that,_ no matter if she would never said so.

 _Mutti_ had sent letters, in the first few months, to the Tütsch cities Monika was supposed to be in, talking about how things were going at home and with _Vater_ ’s commissions and trying to assure her that her _Vater_ wasn’t mad at her, either; this was just how he was, you know.

Monika did know. _Vater_ ’s default mode was judgmental. _Mutti_ was the only one who was treated differently, and she knew he’d tried to be different for Gilbert, but there wasn’t much chance they could really make up the damage that had been done to the relationship in her older brother’s childhood, when _Vater_ hadn’t managed not to be less critical and Gilbert hadn’t learned some of things _Mutti_ did to keep the rebellious and outspoken nature they shared contained.

 _“It would be an asset to you if you were a military officer,”_ she still remembered _Vater_ telling him, with the usual disdain on _‘military officer’._ Her parents didn’t talk about it, like they didn’t talk about anything about the border, but Monika had always suspected, a little, that they’d run to Bärchen like they had because of something to do with the militarization of the area, on both the Tütsch and Árdéllian sides. _“But you will never be a military officer. Your mother had to learn to control it because she is a woman; and just as she is a woman you are an invalid and you do **not** need anything else against your name!”_

“You’re restless, lately, Monika,” Felixian observed over their evening routine that night, leaning back into Monika’s hands, which were undoing her hairstyle for the day and undoing the tangles before bed. “Got used to traveling?”

“I think I want to go home,” Monika told her.

Felixian turned around to look at her and she started feeling nervous in the pit of her stomach.

“To Bärchen?” she asked, concerned. “ _Cara_ , that could hurt.”

“I know,” Monika said. “But I can’t just never go home. And I want to see them again, my parents, and Gilbert. Even if, if they tell me never to come back, I want to have been able to say a real goodbye, and see Bärchen at least once more.”

“If you want to go,” the god said, pulling her down for a kiss. “Then we’ll go. Can I have a week, to finish business?”

Monika had no problem with staying in Beldùno one more week- it gave her time to say goodbye, and to pack, and try to think of what she would say to her family.

She was a little confused, at first, why her love would ask for an entire week when she’d simply dropped everything in Veineità to come, or could simply leave with her immediately and keep some part of herself in Beldùno to finish her business- but two afternoons later, a note came to the house from Charlotte, telling her that Charlotte’s brother was in town for the next five days, and that Charlotte would be very pleased to introduce them.

Felixian, home at the time, just smiled when Monika looked up from the note with the raised eyebrow she’d learned from her father.

“We’re all going to Bärchen _anyway,_ Monika.”


	11. Chapter 11

She didn’t actually meet Falco Zhegers until the afternoon before they were supposed to leave, when Charlotte brought him around for an early dinner to introduce him to the people he was going to be traveling with.

Monika had a moment of slight panic on seeing him. She’d only vaguely recognized the name, but she knew his face. He was of the same social strata as her parents- possessing his own money, but not so much that he didn’t have to work for a living; and useful in such a way as to be tolerated by the _truly_ wealthy and aristocratic in their circles as a sort of valued servant. His social standing, the survival of his business, future employability, and general survival rested on his reputation and ability to fit in no less than her parents’ did.

“Have we met?” Falco asked, noting the recognition she was trying to hide.

“My- my parents,” Monika stammered, mouth dry. Felixian snuck some of their fingers into her hand, to cling to. “Beilschmidt.”

“Hm,” he said. “Roderich and Elisabeth? Yeah, I remember that, you leaving. I’m glad Felixian found you.”

That seemed to be all he thought he needed to say about that, because his next action was to bow at the waist to Felixian.

“Your divineness,” he murmured, and the man accompanying him copied him with a rather more extravagant bow than Falco’s ordered and precise Tütsch one. “Allow me to introduce my business partner, Mathias Køhler.”

“Common-law _hus-band,_ ” Charlotte sing-songed, teasing him.

“And business partner,” Falco said, completely unaffected by his sister’s attempt to needle him. “ _Only_ my business partner, outside of a few.”

“And I’m very glad to meet him!” Felixian said. “I’m happy to know you found someone, Falco-”

The god turned their attention to the other man.

“Køhler- Sea Marches?”

Mathias grinned, national pride shining clear in his expression.

“Free Kingdom of the Aeldervoulk,” he corrected. “It’s the damned Tütsch- excusing present company- that saddled us with _that_ fucking name.”

“He’s a brigand and a pirate and a highwayman,” Falco said affectionately. “Completely disreputable. The Aeldervoulk would have kicked him out too, if he hadn’t been firebombing Tütschen in their name.”

Monika was a little surprised to find herself impressed. The Tütsch counter-expansion in response to the Tirovisans had snapped up a lot of smaller states, and there had, of course, been uprisings in some of them, especially along the borders. The Free Kingdom of the Aeldervoulk had been one on the north coast, next to Alastair’s homeland within the country, and had been particularly fierce. She remembered it vaguely- she’d been six or seven when it had started, and nine or ten when it was officially declared put down. The suppression had been violent and people had worried quite a bit in Bärchen, since the fighting was only ever a few days’ travel away; but Monika remembered it best for as the reason Gilbert had spent long years dreaming of military service.

She hadn’t ever thought she meet an _actual_ revolutionary, though. Tütschen was known to be very thorough in their extermination of malcontents-turned-revolutionaries, though of course the Tirovisan Empire had even more enthusiastic about the executions and the many, many ways to make a painful and bloody public example out of someone.

They had dinner, and Charlotte was absolutely delighted by how well her brother and Monika got along, and Monika started harboring thoughts of getting Gilbert and Mathias some time together in Bärchen, away from anyone else. They were too similar not to enjoy each other’s company, and she was certain they could get past Gilbert’s burning desire to be in the military that had crushed Mathias’ dearly beloved revolution. Gilbert wanted to be in the army not for the glory of Tütschen, but to prove himself. Beyond the political sensors and the police surveillance it would definitely engender, anything vaguely revolutionary had been banned in the Beilschmidt household for a good reason. _Mutti_ and _Vater_ knew that all Gilbert really needed was some sort of excuse to go blow things up, or stage some desperate heroism, to feel like he was worth something, and to get some respect.

 Monika knew that if _she_ asked him, Gilbert wouldn’t go off and do any of that. He’d stay home, for her.

Well- he would have done for Ludwig. She would have to see about Monika, but Gilbert was the one person she was _not_ going to let herself worry about. She could stand _Vater_ throwing her out, and she could learn to live with _Mutti_ doing the same- but she couldn’t lose Gilbert.

They left Beldùno the next morning, on good horses and a sturdy pack animal, for the other side of the mountains. This range marked the southern border of Isbana, so Monika wasn’t at all surprised when Felixian- no, she’d have to get used to using Feliciano again- was totally unsurprised by some man just coming up and grabbing the reins of his horse at the edge of the first Isbanese village they came to.

“I haven’t seen you in _decades,_ Feliciano!” the man said. He seemed very enthusiastic about having guests, so Monika was going to tentatively label this meeting as a pleasant one. “And now you’re turning up with humans! Going _teireiseos_ hunting?”

“I don’t need to hunt them down, Antonio,” Feliciano told him, practically falling off his horse to hug the other god. “ _They_ come to _me._ Eventually. I mean, I might find more in Tütschen since I’m really not ever there and people don’t pray to me a lot but usually the Tütsch who need me leave, like Monika- Monika! Come meet Antonio!”

Antonio actually had them over for a late breakfast, and then just kept talking and talking and talking, about anything and everything anyone mentioned, and eventually it was time for dinner and then he insisted that they just _had_ to stay for that, and wine afterwards, and he wasn’t about to put them out to find an inn or a highway hostel when he had _more_ than enough bedrooms-

Falco and Mathias were startled to leave the house after breakfast, and laden down with more food, and find themselves most of the way to Galia already. It should have taken a lot longer. Falco took it with typical Tütsch stoicism, but Mathias had a gleam in his eye that made Monika think that he was wishing for the ability to cover so much distance undetected for the Aeldervoulk. It would be an incredibly useful thing in a revolutionary uprising.

Feliciano was fudging distance for them again, as he had when it was only the two of them traveling, and they reached Galia a few days later.

“We probably won’t see François for a while,” he told them at the first Galian inn they stayed in. “He likes Seminailae too much to leave unless it’s _really_ important.”

Monika had been through Seminailae on her way down, and the capital of Galia had been every bit as impressive as the stories held it to be, glittering on both banks of the Ile-parei and the new Imperial palace on the island in the middle. It was actually a rather exhausting place, and she was glad that Bärchen had only made a half-hearted attempt to imitate the city.

“I think François is trying a little too hard,” Feliciano confided to her when they were only a couple of hours from the city boundary. “He thinks that because Cristiforus has been pretending to be Marcus all this time that Lovino and Vespasiana don’t actually have a leg to stand on. But the power balance is in the south now, with them, and they’re not going to give it up. The Emperor’s mother and grandfather and _five_ of his great-grandparents were from Neaellása, and his wife is going to be. François can’t touch that, it’s kind of sad actually, I think he thinks he has to prove himself because we kind of stole him from you but everyone _knows_ Galia and Galians are Tirovisan, not Tütsch, no matter if you were the same people six hundred years ago or so.”

Monika was less impressed by François than his city, and Falco was totally unmoved. Mathias, for goodness knew what reason, decided that his time was best spent needling the god, and he got them all kicked out of the city on a fast boat down the Ile-parei to the mountains on the Tütsch border before they’d been in Seminailae more than an hour.

The only reason he hadn’t been smote was because Feliciano was with them, but Feliciano didn’t seem too upset about being out of the other god’s company, so Monika and Falco silently agreed to ignore that the entire episode had happened.

She got more and more nervous every hour they were on the river. The boat was holding to the travel rate Feliciano had set for the ship to Tirovisa, and they would be at the border by mid-evening. From there, with the god’s company, it would probably be only a week, maybe nine days at the most, until they were in Bärchen.

There was a rude surprise awaiting her in the river port town on the border. Her and Feliciano’s faked papers worked fine, which was what she had actually been worried about- though, giving it more logical thought, it made perfect sense that the combined efforts of a god and a revolutionary who hadn’t been caught and executed in more than a decade could fake official documents as good as real ones.

But the steam train lines, which had been the new military marvel in Bärchen when she’d left less than five years ago, and that had been heralded at the time as the newest step in keeping the Árdéllian border and the still-unhappy Aeldervoulk controlled by direct connection to the capital and a lightning-quick supply and transport route for the army, had exploded in the years she’d been gone. There was a map in the passenger boat station, which doubled as the train station now too, of the rails. They went all over the country, and had been opened to civilian use when the military didn’t have need of them.

It would take _three_ days to get to Bärchen on the fast direct train, not seven to nine days on divinely-powered horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is going to be fourteen chapters, maybe? We'll see. I'm planning on finishing it tomorrow or the day after, anyhow.


	12. Chapter 12

Falco discreetly cleared his throat once they’d gotten their carriage on the train and had started off. Monika was a bit nervous about the steam and the rapid _clik-clik-clik_ of the wheels on the rail, but she had read everything on steam power she could get her hands on before she’d left, and knew the safety measures they’d put in against the whole thing exploding and killing everyone.

And if they did malfunction and they suffered a fiery, grisly death- well, she’d died once before.

“Give that we’re now in Tütschen,” he said, looking sort of sideways at Feliciano. “Don’t you have to meet-?”

“Tieuderic?” Feliciano asked. “I do, but he’s pretty unpredictable actually, I don’t know when he’ll show up, he’s probably ignoring me right now or trying to figure out what I’m up to traveling with three of his people even if Monika _is_ technically more mine now, and- oh, is this going to be awkward for you? Meeting him? Because if it’s awkward for you he might be waiting to get me alone so he doesn’t make you uncomfortable or scared or something, that’s the sort of thing he’d do. He cares a lot about his people, even if he doesn’t show it a lot; its foreigners he _really_ doesn’t like.”

The carriage was very nice- Falco had decided that the dignity of guest demanded first class tickets, and had staunchly refused to let Feliciano pay him back. Monika had seen the god put the cost of the four tickets and a little extra into Falco’s wallet, later, when he wasn’t looking; but that was the extent to which she paid attention to much of anything else, that day.

She was too worried about going home. Feliciano sat with her most of the day, quietly reassuring her that he’d be right there, it didn’t matter what her parents or her brother said, she wasn’t going to be alone and she wasn’t going to be unloved and there was place for her as long as she existed, in life and in death, because Feliciano wasn’t going to let her go, not unless she wanted to leave.

Falco and Mathias politely ignored them, and then Mathias got her drunk on an alternating regimen of sweet wine and Tütsch beer in the dining car after dinner that night, so she could sleep when they got back to their carriage. She and Feliciano managed to cram into one of the fold-down beds- an accomplishment, since they were only meant for one person, and she hadn’t lost any height or much muscle mass in the change from _‘Ludwig’._ She and Feliciano had talked about, like the god did for every one of his _teireiseos,_ and she’d found that she didn’t want to give up that much of herself. They had bothered her a little before, but now that she really could think of herself as a woman, it didn’t matter any longer.

The next day, about midmorning, a tall, stoic man, with unfashionably long blonde hair but a very sharp and fashionable suit knocked on the door of their carriage. Feliciano glanced through the glass at him, kissed Monika rather more heavily and possessively than she really thought was necessary in company, and stopped just long enough in pulling back from it to whisper: _“Mine, cara”_ to her.

Then he went off with Tieuderic, and they didn’t see him again until halfway through dinner.

The third day was the last day on the train, and it wasn’t even a full day. They were scheduled to reach Bärchen at four in the afternoon, and Monika was trying not to panic starting about eleven, because she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to handle all of this.

“Feli,” she said, and hated it. She might not know exactly what she was going to say, but she knew this much. “Feli, I- I can’t just turn up at my parents’ door like this. They wouldn’t recognize me. They wouldn’t _believe_ me.”

Feliciano didn’t try to argue with her about it, and that was even worse.

The train came into Bärchen perfectly on time, and they all went to Falco’s house. He gave them a guest bedroom, and had a note sent off to Monika’s parents that he’d arrived back in the city and needed to see them at their earliest convenience. The return note came during dinner, and Monika didn’t know how well, exactly, Falco knew her parents; but they’d agreed to the sudden request for a ten o’clock meeting the next morning, _and_ invited Mathias along without being asked.

The only reason she got to sleep that night was because Feliciano _made_ her sleep; and the only reason she got out of bed in the morning was because she was too proud to turn around and go back to Beldùno after coming all this way.

Men’s clothes in the right size had been found, from somewhere, and left hanging on the back of the door.

“Less than an hour,” Feliciano promised her quietly, cradling her face in his hands. “Less than an hour, _cara,_ and you can stop any time, whenever you need to it, it doesn’t matter even if we’re out in the street I’ll protect you and I’ll get you away- I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Monika told him. “And I have to.”

Her old body felt worse than it had even when she’d been out in the bars, because now she really knew what it was like _not_ to have it.

 _Get to the house get to the house get to the house,_ she repeated to herself, over and over, while they waited by the door for Falco and Mathias. The servants had been banished somewhere, so Feliciano was cuddled up into her side and quietly saying: “Hey, Monika-” every couple of minutes, and followed it with some new, inane fact, like the current price of Veineità’s last-year’s-fashionable-scent perfumed soap in Parcenona.  

Falco and Mathias very careful did their best to ignore the change, which made the butler’s surprised exclamation of: “Master Beilschmidt! Welcome home-! Please excuse us for not expecting you, we hadn’t heard a word-” all the worse.


	13. Chapter 13

_Mutti_ and _Vater_ were both home, and of course Gilbert was too. Her brother was the first to get the news- they heard the uppermost door in the house slam open from all the way down in the sitting room, immediately followed by his scream of: _“Lutz!”_

He wasn’t the first one to get there, though, because he had two whole floors to come down. _Mutti_ was first, dashing in with her skirts hiked up in the way that she _never_ did around company, and pulled Monika down into a tight hug she gladly returned, actually lifting her mother up off her feet a little.

“Oh, Ludwig, we were so _worried,_ ” her _Mutti_ said. “We haven’t heard from you in _ages-_ ”

Monika realized, rather guiltily, that the last time she’d written them had been in Tirovisa, when she was coming down to Veineità; and the last time before that would have been in Parcenona. The Parcenona and Tirovisa letters would have gotten here by now, but she’d delayed writing anything while in Veineità for a few weeks, and then there had been the cultists and- everything else. They’d had no idea if she’d made it to Veineità or not.

“I’ve been well, _Mutti_ ,” she said, and her voice was too low and there was a moment of mental entanglement- she didn’t sound like _that-_

 _Vater_ was next, because the piano room was only a few doors down from the sitting room, but it always took him _forever_ to get anywhere. He gave Falco and Mathias and Feliciano a long, searching look; and only then paid attention to her.

“Are you happy now?” he asked; and Monika wasn’t sure how to reply to that because she _was_ happy, in Beldùno; but right now right here-

His shoulders dropped, a little, when she didn’t respond right away, and _Mutti_ started to look worried.

“Well,” _Vater_ said. “Welcome home, son.”

_Son-_

Then it was Gilbert, boots making a hammering on the hall floor as he got to the ground floor. The door burst open and Monika was caught up in another hug, even stronger than _Mutti_ ’s, and she returned it gladly.

“Lutz, Lutz!” he exclaimed happily. “Shit, little brother, we missed you- and what, you made friends with _Herr_ Zhegers, too? _And_ you brought a Tirovisan along-”

Gilbert dropped his voice to a whisper.

“He your _friend?_ ” he asked. “You can tell me. We’ll find some way to keep it a secret-”

Crying was _terrible_ but here she was doing it anyway- there was too much Ludwig in this house and she’d thought she’d be able to sit through more of it but she _couldn’t,_ and everyone was so happy to see her but they _weren’t_ they were happy to see _Ludwig,_ and Gilbert was already trying to help-

“Feli,” Monika said, reaching a hand back towards him. _“Please-”_

She didn’t feel the actual physical change, but a couple of seconds after Feliciano took her hand there was just a little less of her and she’d moved some weight around.

 _Gilbert_ noticed, though, because he went: _“Holy **shit!** ” _and pulled back immediately to stare at her.

She felt suddenly very open. If Gilbert hadn’t reacted, she would have a few more seconds to get ready for this- Monika was considered very modern and fashion-forward in Beldùno, with her short hair and ease in pants in a place where she didn’t have to wear a skirt for everyone to get the idea, and she wouldn’t have really looked that different to everyone else if she’d been able to keep hiding her face in Gilbert’s shoulder.

There were a couple of tense minutes after that, as her family got over the initial shock. Feliciano wasn’t at all helpful here, because he compounded it by immediately owning up to his divine status and proving it with a few little displays of power, making the door close from across the room and such.

But eventually Monika got to speak her piece, stumbling over the very personal parts, even with Feliciano right there to hold her and editing out details that other people _really_ didn’t need to know.

There was a staring silence after she was done.

Falco pulled out his pipe and lit it, unasked. That was a little rude, and this wasn’t the smoking room, but her parents didn’t seem to care right now.

“It’s not some kind of set-up or something, Roderich, Elisabeth,” he told her parents. “Happened to my sister, too.”

“But you don’t-” _Mutti_ started to say, and then stopped. _“Oh.”_

“I wondered why your, ah-” _Vater_ trailed off a little, obviously still working on the concept.

“She’s in Beldùno,” Falco told them. “Been living there since our parents died, since she can’t be here without killing the business.”

Monika’s parents exchanged a look.

“Well, you’re- you’re all welcome to stay,” _Mutti_ said. “Falco and Mathias, for lunch, and- Monika, Feliciano, however long you like. I’m just- Roderich, dear, come with me. We’re going to have to dismiss the servants and put lunch on ourselves- Gilbert, could you take your sister and her-”

She stumbled a little over how to address Feliciano’s role in the situation.

“-nice young man,” she decided on. “Up to the bedrooms, and get them settled? Oh, and we’re going to have to send someone for their luggage-”

“We can go over and get it,” Falco volunteered. “Give you time to get lunch on without having to host us, too.”

“You’re wonderful Falco, thank you-”

Her parents left the room, in a bit of a muddle, to walk Falco and Mathias to the door.

Gilbert took the seat on the couch next to Monika that Falco had vacated, and slung an arm around her shoulder.

“Sister, huh?” he asked quietly, pulling her over into another hug. “I’ve got to ask then- your god making an honest woman out of you anytime soon? Because if he’s not, I’m going to have to kick his ass.”

Monika started laughing, in relief, and then couldn’t stop.

* * *

The servants had all been dismissed, much to their confusion, until the foreseeable future; but none of them had actually complained, because Erzsébet had been sure to pay them for the next week first.

A week should be enough time to figure out what to do.

“People are going to talk,” Roderich said, as he searched for the plates.

Erzsébet put the pot she was holding down firmly on the counter, making a dull _thunk._

“Of _all_ the times to worry about _appearances,_ Roderich-”

“It keeps us alive,” her husband interrupted her, calmly. “And no, I’m not saying we should value that over having our children home- but we can’t have both.”

“Corner cupboard, dear,” she told him, and he opened it to find the plates. “But that’s not- we _should_ be able to have both! I won’t turn Monika out in the street-!”

“I don’t think we should, either,” Roderich said, carefully taking down the plates. It had been years since either of them had had to worry about dishes, and the possible breaking thereof. The border was a lifetime ago, on purpose. “But can we pick up and start over again? Spend years lying to build up a new cover and a new background? We did that once already, and it still won’t stand up to anyone who looks too hard. We would have to leave behind all our contacts and accomplishments here in Bärchen to do that- and change names again, and what would we do about Gilbert? The Beilschmidts with their albino eldest son disappear from Bärchen, and then in some other city a different family, with another albino eldest son, suddenly appear? That won’t-”

“I _know!_ ” Erzsébet exclaimed in frustration. “I _know_ it won’t, Roderich! But the only other option is to have Monika _not_ live with us, to go to Beldùno like Falco’s sister and barely ever see us, and then that’s _both_ of our children who have had to suffer because of us!”

Her husband put the plates and the silverware down on the top of the counter and went over to hold her.

“It’s not our fault, Erzsébet,” he reminded her quietly. “It isn’t.”

“Not that we had to run, no,” she said. “That’s the fucking government, and the military, and- but our _children?_ That _is,_ Roderich, and you know it.”

Erzsébet turned away and went back to gathering the food.

“We should have gone to Ruxenia, Roderich,” she said. “Like we’d planned. It shouldn’t have _mattered_ if it was going to be difficult, if we would have had to go through all of Árdéll or take the long way around through the Tirovisan Empire and then back up through Ellása- we came all this way into Tütsch from the border; and we _knew_ the only place we’d really be safe would be in Ruxenia-”

“You were pregnant-”

“Then I could have had Gilbert on the road!” Erzsébet burst out. “I could have had him on a ship! I’ve planted bombs and smuggled munitions and shot soldiers on patrol- I could have handled _traveling_ and _being pregnant!_ Ivan would have taken us in and we would have been _safe;_ and we wouldn’t have had to deal with all of this _posturing_ and this _hiding-_ ”

She stopped herself this time, instead of being interrupted, and trucked the rest of the food out to the table in silence, fuming. Roderich let her be, giving her silent little touches when they passed each other.

“We could still go to Ruxenia,” he said, once everything was on the table and the only thing left to do was wait for Falco and Mathias to come back, and call the others down for lunch. “We haven’t spoken to Ivan or any of the others in years, but we know who made it and who didn’t. They won’t have forgotten us, and it won’t matter if we don’t have any references from here in Kevska. Ivan and Yekateryna and Natalya, and Timo and Raivis and Toris and Eiliv- they’ll speak for us. We couldn’t ask for better patronage, or backing.”

“Gilbert could go to the military,” Erzsébet said tiredly, rubbing an eye with the heel of her palm. “He’d be so happy. And I wouldn’t have to sit through anyone calling me _‘Elisabeth Beilschmidt’_ any longer. But Monika-”

“No one would know,” Roderich said. “And if someone found out, Ivan isn’t the sort of person to stand for a fuss being made about it. You know how seriously he takes _‘Justice and liberty, happiness and security’_.”

“Would she _want_ to come to Ruxenia, though?” Erzsébet worried. “She has her- man. He’s come all the way here, but I can’t see him moving to Kevska. His people are in Veineità, and Beldùno. He can’t just _leave._ Veineità or Beldùno to Kevska is an even further journey than there to Bärchen. I want to be able to _see_ her, sometimes, Roderich.”

“Then we could go to Veineità-”

“Too easy to find us there.”

“-or Beldùno.”

“That’s Monika’s place, but would they have Gilbert?”

The bell for the door tinkled off in the hallway. Falco and Mathias were back.

“We don’t have to decide right now,” Roderich told her softly. “Let’s get through lunch first, and worry later.”


	14. Chapter 14

Felixian was unsurprised when Monika’s parents came to see him, just before dinner, while Gilbert and Monika were off talking. Her mother had asked an awful lot of questions about Beldùno, and Felixian was the god of journeys and quests and change even if that wasn’t his _primary_ role, and even beyond that he knew from simple experience what people fishing for information to make a decision with looked like.

“There isn’t a lot of call for pianists in Beldùno,” he told them, as kindly as he could. “And I’d like to keep it that way, even if it means giving up some cultural development and such, because if it turned into a center of culture and art and literature and music then there would be a bunch of tourists and outsiders and I’ve worked really hard to keep it for the _teireiseos,_ to _not_ have outsiders who don’t understand or _won’t_ understand clogging the place up. Some is fine- friends and family, understanding ones, and other Felicians- they’re fine. And travelers who use it as a stopover on business, or people who are looking for me. But you’d be better off not coming. If you’d like help setting up somewhere else…”

Monika’s parents looked at each other.

“We have a- letter, actually,” Monika’s mother said. “That we’d written, in case of this. If you could get it there faster than normal-”

“I can get it anywhere you need, tonight,” Felixian promised, holding out his hand for it. Monika’s mother pulled it from a pocket in her skirts. “Who’s it for.”

“Ivan Avdanyavitch Braginski,” she said. “In Kevska.”

Felixian _knew_ that name, and would have put money on Monika’s parents expecting that he knew it, too.

It would take a bit of maneuvering, but-

“Tütsch with Ruxenian friends?” he asked, instead of the obvious question. “I had no idea you were such interesting people! Monika never said a thing about you knowing Ivan!”

“She doesn’t know,” her father said. “No one in Bärchen knows.”

“Not even Mathias?” Felixian asked.

“No one,” the man repeated.

“And that would be why you fled the border then,” Felixian said, and gave the idea of delegating a different portion of himself to deliver the letter a second’s consideration. No, it would be a bad idea- it would make the humans uncomfortable. Monika was at least accustomed to the idea that there was a lot of him running around, everywhere, but there was no reason to shove her face in it. He’d take this part of himself off to Ruxenia. “Let me say goodbye to Monika, and I’ll have a reply by tomorrow morning, if not sooner.”

Monika and Gilbert were just down the hall, apparently having a very animated conversation. Monika was laughing when Felixian came in.

“ _Ciao, cara,_ ” he told her, giving her a quick kiss. “I have to go deliver a letter for your parents, and then I’ll be back. I’m sorry if I miss dinner or bed tonight.”

“My _parents?_ ” Monika asked, surprised. “What do they need _you_ to deliver a letter for?”

“It’s going very far,” he said. “And I’m sure it’s a really interesting story, but you should ask them.”

A thought; and he was in a small stone temple outside of Kevska, hung on the insides with faded tapestries and a simple, elevated eternal fire on the altar, a bowl of ice-cold water at the foot of the little dais.

“Evadne,” Felixian said into the silence, using the goddess’s old name, before she’d left Ellása, like Lovino and Vespasiana before her. “Avdanya; I need to talk to your son.”

The door to the temple opened, though it didn’t really need to- and that was _cold,_ he’d forgotten how cold Ruxenia could get- and little eddies of snow blew in on the light wind in the wake of the goddess who’d come to see him.

“What business could _you_ possibly have with my son, Golden-Eyed?” Avdanya demanded.

“A personal favor for the parents of one of my _teireiseos_ , Winter,” he told her, and brandished the letter. “Surely you remember the time he spent in Feina? This is from a Roderich and an Elisabeth Beilschmidt.”

“There were no _‘Beilschmidt’_ s of my son’s acquaintance in Feina,” she told him. “There were a Roderich Edelstein, and an Erzsébet Héderváry, whom he loved; but no one by those names. And they are dead, besides. Leave.”

“They’re not dead,” Felixian said. It was a perk, being the god of death- you knew _exactly_ who was alive and who wasn’t. He sneaked a look at the folded letter, which he’d mostly been ignoring, to confirm- and, yes, those were the right names; and _oh,_ did Monika have no idea what her parents had gotten up to. “You know I’d know, and I know they’re not dead. They escaped to Bärchen and their daughter is-”

He had been going to say _‘one of my teireiseos’_ again; but with Avdanya-

“-the woman I love,” Felixian told her instead. “They’re looking for a way out of Bärchen, Avdanya, so they can have their daughter. I told them there wouldn’t be much of a place for them in Beldùno, so this is their best option. I just have to deliver the letter to Ivan, and then take his reply back.”

“And if they come here?” she demanded. “If your woman comes with her parents, since they are moving so far to keep her? What will you do then?”

“Stay with her,” Felixian said. “I can’t leave her, and people bring their gods with them no matter where they go- _you_ know that, Evadne.”

He patted the altar with one hand, and she glared at him.

“Keep your hands off my tomb.”

“I don’t want your people, Evadne,” he told her. “I really don’t. I just want Monika, and any _teireiseos_ there might be in Kevska, or Ruxenia, or who come this way- and _teireiseos_ are mine no matter where they are anyway, so it’s not like you’d be losing anything.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

“You’re not going to see my son without me,” she told him, and Felixian knew he’d won.

“I wasn’t going to go without you, anyhow,” he said, and offered her his arm. “Thank you, Evadne.”

* * *

They’d tried to get back into the spirit of the conversation they’d had before, but Feliciano’s errand was just too intriguing to let lie.

“Think they’d actually tell us something, this time?” Gilbert finally asked.

“Maybe,” Monika said. “It couldn’t hurt.”

 _Vater_ just sighed when they walked in, looking up from his book; and _Mutti_ pointed to the low couch.

“Sit,” she told them, and then once they’d done that:

“Why do you think we came to Bärchen?”

“Because there isn’t any work for pianist on the border,” Gilbert said.

“I thought you didn’t like the army,” Monika told her, and _Vater_ actually _snorted._

“ _‘Didn’t like the army’_ ,” he muttered. “Oh, _that’s_ a good one.”

 _Mutti_ slapped his knee.

 _“Roderich,”_ she said.

 _Vater_ put his book down, and adjusted his glasses.

“They were going to shoot us,” he told them. “We’re from Feina.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” Gilbert said, after a second, looking at their parents with wide eyes. “You _didn’t-_ ”

A smile was tugging at the corners of _Mutti_ ’s mouth.

“ _‘Long Live the Republic’_ ,” she said, a little sadly.              

Monika was- well she had certainly never expected _this_ of her parents.

The Feiner Republic was the most infamous of the rebellions against Tütschen, even worse than Mathias’s Free Kingdom of the Aldervoulk; because Feina had managed to make it _stick._ They’d held out for five years after killing the royal governor and overthrowing the state legislature. Initially, the Republic had taken most of the state as its hinterland, and a good portion of Árdéll across the border; but by the end of the fourth year the Tütsch and the Árdéllians had taken it all back and were laying siege to the city, which had been one of the biggest in Tütsch- a national treasure, a center of arts and learning.

At first, Tütschen had blamed Árdéll for the revolutionaries, saying they’d clearly been seeded by the foreign provocateurs to take Feina for _their_ kingdom; but Árdéll had been saying the same thing about Tütschen, accusing their neighbor of going expansionist again and gunning for yet another country to take into their empire in all-but-name, since Feina had taken a chunk of Árdéll with them. Old animosities and prejudice had flared on both sides of the border, and the social fabric of the two kingdoms was kicked into an uproar as the Tütsch started campaigning against the _‘Árdéllians’_ in their kingdom- fourth and fifth generation immigrants, mostly, and those on the border who could claim equal heritage from both countries- and the Árdéllians against the _‘Tütsch’_ in theirs.

By the time they’d sorted out that the Feiner Republic was modeled off of the proposed Republic of Ruxenia that had gotten the Ruxenian Emperor’s bastard son Ivan exiled, and it became common knowledge that the bastard prince who styled himself as the son of Ruxenia’s goddess was actually _in_ the city, and was one of the ringleaders of the movement, the damage had been done.

Feina’s claimed hinterland was gone by the midway point of the fourth year, and the Siege of Feina started at the beginning of that winter. The city and the Republic had lasted the entire year before treachery opened the gates to the Tütsch.

 They captured almost all of the revolutionaries and shot them on the spot- the ones they didn’t manage to lock in the reclaimed Governor’s Palace and torch. There were a few of the main forces behind the revolutionaries who escaped, but it took until a few months later, when Prince Ivan miraculously turned up in Kvenska, seized control of the country, and turned it into his Republic, with the full backing of the priesthood as to his divine parentage, that anyone knew what had happened to the ones they’d missed.

 _Most_ of the ones they’d missed, anyway. Even now, almost thirty years later, _‘The Five Fugitives of Feina’_ was standard learning for children in school.

“ _‘And two for the love of their city: Edelstein for his sedition, the Tartar for her mission’_ ,” Monika quoted, hesitantly, from midway through the poem.

 _Vater_ sniffed.

“ _They_ can call it sedition all they want,” he said primly. “It was the truth; nothing more, nothing less.”

“The best part was how they missed us,” _Mutti_ said, with more than a little pride. “They’d never figured out my name, and who would suspect a young couple- an artist and a pregnant woman- to firebomb High Command on their way out as a distraction? In the newspapers they said it was my reprise of the military barracks in the Revolution, and that I’d let myself burn to death like the phoenix of the Republic. It was very romantic, I like the song about it.”

“You were _revolutionaries,_ ” Gilbert said incredulously, obviously still working his mind around it.

Monika was less surprised. Having secret revolutionaries for parents wasn’t nearly as much of a life change as being killed, resurrected, falling in love with a god, and finding out you were _teireiseos_.

“We know Ivan Braginski personally,” _Vater_ told them, which was- rather more of a surprise, actually. Prince Ivan was _infamous,_ in Tütsch; and what he’d done in Feina and then Ruxenia made having Ruxenian friends anywhere but Ellása a dangerous proposition. “We should have gone with him to Kevska when Feina fell, but we didn’t. We asked your man to take a letter to him, Monika- I have no doubt Ivan can find us a place there.”

“ _‘Us’_?” she asked.

“Your father and I,” _Mutti_ said. “Have our history to fall back on. Gilbert- you could go into the military, I know Natalya oversees that personally, and if you’re willing to put the work in she’s not going to care _what_ you look like. Monika-”

She paused for a moment, and got a little sad.

“-you could tell anyone or not, about being _teireiseos,_ as you wished. Ivan wouldn’t let anyone make a fuss of it. But- but we understand if you’d rather go back to Beldùno, or Veineità, to be with Feliciano. Our house would always be open, whenever you wanted to come.”


	15. Chapter 15

Monika was sitting up in bed, waiting for Feliciano, when he returned. He came into the room and flopped down on the bed without even taking his clothes off.

“Did your parents tell you?” he asked, toeing his boots off.

“About Feina, and Prince Ivan? Yes.”

“Oh, good,” Feliciano said, and rolled over to face her. “I just brought his letter back, your parents and your brother and you are welcome in Kevska whenever, he’s got a couple of old Imperial properties he’s kept aside just in case he heard from the other Feiner Republic revolutionaries again, and he’s having one cleaned out for your parents’ arrival starting in the morning. And I told your parents I’d help them get there, since it’s so far away and they’re your parents and all.”

“That’s nice of you,” she told him.

“Anything for you, _cara,_ ” he said with a smile; but then his expression dropped, a bit.

“Are you going to go to Kevska, with your parents?”

Monika reached for him, and he scooted up the bed so she could hold him.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said. “But my parents-”

“No, I completely understand, your parents are happy that you’re happy and you want to be with them, and it’s a rare _teireiseos_ who isn’t Tirovisan or from the mountains like Sebastian and Liesl who gets to keep their family; if you want to go to Kevska with them then you should go to Kevska.”

“But you’re going to be in _Beldùno,_ ” Monika reminded him. “And Veineità, and the rest of Tirovisa; and I’ll be in _Kevska_ and that’s a month and a half on boat and _five_ months overland, in winter-”

Feliciano reached up and put a finger on her lips.

“Monika,” he said, eyes dancing. “You can go to Kevska and not loose me. I talked to Avdanya, too, you know, since I had to anyway since I was in her city seeing her son, and we… worked some things out. It doesn’t matter if it’s far away- _‘Incomprehensibly **huge’**_ , remember?”

* * *

_Dear Charlotte,_

_It’s only been a couple of hours since I wrote this, at most, depending on what you were doing when Felixian came back to the city. I had her give it to you instead of sending it the regular way, because you would never guess where I am right now- I’m in **Kevska.**_

_My family- well, it’s a long and interesting story, but shortly: my parents turned out to be two of the Five Fugitives of Feina, and they came to Bärchen because Mutti was pregnant with Gilbert and Vater was worried about what a trip to Ruxenia would do to her in that state, so they came to Bärchen and have been hiding there in plain sight ever since. My coming home, as myself and with Felixian, was the push they needed to stop living in Bärchen, to stop lying about everything all the time, and finally go to Kevska._

_Prince Ivan gave us one of the old manor houses in the city, so this is actually a step up for us. Mutti has been installed in government, under her **real** name- Erzsébet Héderváry, the **Tartar,** you would never know it if you’d met her in Bärchen as ‘Elisabeth Beilschmidt’- and Vater- Roderich **Edelstein,** not Beilschmidt, apparently Beilschmidt was the surname of one of his neighbors in Feina, though I don’t think I’ll be changing to his surname anytime soon- said he didn’t want to do administration, so he’s with the city Philharmonic now, and pulled out some of the patriotic compositions he wrote in Feina. Apparently they’re going to be scored for orchestra, and he’s been on the piano almost nonstop for the last couple of days, because he’s composing something he’s calling ‘Ode to Ruxenia’ right now._

_Felixian is staying with me, here. Part of her is, anyway, you know how that works. We’re officially engaged, now, and so this letter is also an invitation to the wedding. It’s going to be a winter one, and I’d like it if you could also tell Alastair and Sebastian and Liesl, and our other friends, and your brother and Mathias if they’d like. If you want to be mischievous about the news- which you **will,** don’t try to act like you won’t, I know you better- then you can wait a couple of days. That’s when the Tütsch and Árdéllian newspapers will be carrying the news that Mutti and Vater have turned up in Kevska, Felixian got to take **that** news on behalf of Prince Ivan and his mother._

_It’s part of the bargain Felixian made with Avdanya. This news isn’t going to be in the papers, because it’s about teireiseos. Felixian will be spreading it around Beldùno and to the temples elsewhere, but I’m going to tell you too, so you can spread that around, as well._

_Yesterday, Prince Ivan signed a law recognizing the legal rights and status of teireiseos, with associated penalties for not treating us as full and otherwise undifferentiated citizens, or foreign visitors. Felixian has been running around Kevska and the bigger towns nearby, finding more of us, and I’m sure some people will come forward without her coming to see them._

_The bargain was that, in return for that law and a temple in Kevska and being able to stay here with me, as my spouse; Felixian wouldn’t do anything but handle the teireiseos. I’m sure her other jobs will creep in, eventually, but for now the Felician religion is the only other state-sponsored faith. It’s a bit of a coup, and Felixian is very proud of herself._

_So go ahead and spread the joyous news- we have an entire **country** now, Charlotte, where we can be ourselves, and free._

_Yours, with best wishes,_

_Monika Beilschmidt_


End file.
